


on lightning, on luster

by tothemoon



Series: ad astra [3]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon Related, Childhood Friends, Emotional Sex, Gen, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Not Really Character Death, Resurrection, Tokyo (City), emphasis that no one ever stays dead, in which summer is iwaizumi hajime's favorite season (or could be), letter writing and the oikawa family geneology included, please heed caution
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-10
Updated: 2015-09-27
Packaged: 2018-03-21 03:51:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 86,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3676341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tothemoon/pseuds/tothemoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p></p><blockquote>
  <p>Maybe it’s because Oikawa is more than something gilded. When Hajime thinks of those seventy-two kilograms of wonder and <i>weight</i>, his one-hundred and eighty-four centimeters, arms outstretched, he knows his best friend's still learning to tower. <i>Oikawa Tooru.</i> That name of his races through his head like it’s making a rallying tour, a <i>victory</i> tour, honestly, because there’s no doubt about it by now—<i>Hajime wants Oikawa</i>, likes him even, but not because he’s made of myth. Oikawa’s first death might have come by lightning, but Hajime doesn’t seek such flash.</p>
  <p>Because for all the love Oikawa gets as Miyagi's golden boy, Hajime will love everything under the luster.</p>
</blockquote><br/>Or, a tale in which Iwaizumi Hajime is born into the world with twenty-five lives. His best friend, Oikawa, isn't quite as lucky.
            </blockquote>





	1. a boy like lightning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Recommended listening: "Immortal" by Marina and the Diamonds

 

 

 

> _And so the gods battled and set the world to this tune;_  
>  _For every life given, misfortune will be here to take us, too._
> 
> _So remember this, because it's all you really need to do—_  
>  _That this is our place, just don't let it get to you._

 

 

Iwaizumi Hajime is five when his mother sits down and explains it the first time. It is summer and the porch door has been thrown wide open, cicadas sizzling in the damp summer air, and he gets the sense that it's going to rain because he can always smell it in the air like something's burning. His mother, on the other side of the table, is still wearing the small black bracelet to signify the loss of a loved one, and tugs at the string impatiently like she wants to tear it off altogether. Hajime itches at his, wonders why he has to wear twineof all things, and decides to ultimately leave it alone for later.

"What are we waiting for?" Hajime asks her, indignant. He had promised to play with the strange new boy who just moved three houses down from his, and the rain would certainly put a damper on things. He hears thunder, counts each rumble like a second hand on a clock, and feels something reverberate in his bones. Hajime wonders if he's getting a stomachache. His mother stares on, eyes vacant but flicking up in something lively from time to time.

"Your father. He should be coming back any minute now," Hajime's mother says. She sounds like she's just run a long race, breathless.

"Oh? From his trip to Kyoto, then?" Hajime asks, brightening up. His father had been gone for a week now, simply for what his mother pens as _out-of-town-business._ This is the first time Hajime's ever had to live without him around, and he was starting to get antsy about things, so he's glad he'll be back soon.

"Oh, Hajime. We have some things to explain to you when he gets here," his mother sighs, a semblance of a smile coming back on her lips. Maybe she's just won her imaginary race, Hajime thinks.

"What things?" he asks.

"The world as you know it."

Hajime's father returns soon after that, coming through the front door wearing a black suit and a tie to match. Hajime blinks up, breath sucked in, because he's never seen him dressed like this. He smiles, looks down at his wife's wrists, and she takes off the mourning bracelet in turn.

"Where have you been, dad?" Hajime asks, rising from the table. He comes over, _relieved_ , it seems, and bends down to face his son at eye level. He takes Hajime's hand (to which Hajime just laughs a little) and unties the thread around his wrist, wrapping the twine around his fingers and putting it into his pocket for safekeeping. He stares back to his wife, who gives a nod of approval, and then back at Hajime, who feels the strange need to take a deep breath again. Outside, the rain officially starts to pour. Thunder sounds in low echoes.

"I was dead, Hajime," his father says in a whisper, voice almost lost under the storm. "and your mother and I want to tell you that it will happen to you, too."

"What?"

Hajime lowers himself back onto the floor. Tears stinging at his eyes but never falling, because death is not something for children, he nods along when his parents tell about his twenty-five lives, and how he has to be careful not to lose them too fast, or too hard.

He rubs at his eyes when his father tells him to be strong. Hajime feels the strong urge to salute when he makes himself stand again. His mother recites the motto for the first time, which he tells himself to seal into his heart, steady and true.

 

 _And so the gods battled and set the world to this tune;  
_ _For every life given, misfortune will be here to take us, too._

 

Hajime repeats the lines. He loses himself momentarily, when the first flash of storm's light blinks in the overcast.

Down the street, a golden boy in the making loses his first life to lightning, of all things, out of all the odds, when he tries to climb a high tree in front of his house.

 _So remember this, because it's all you really need to do—  
_ _That this is our place, just don't let it get to you._

 

The dying boy smiles with each semi-last word on his tongue.

"I wanted to prove something."

The golden boy to be feels his older sister take his hand, softly, solemnly, for she doesn't have that many lives to begin with, either.

"And what was that, Tooru?" she asks, streaming her fingers through his hair in comfort.

Oikawa doesn’t move, but the muscles on his face stretch into something even more brilliant than before.

"That I could reach the sky, too."

 

**_x_ **

 

 

For a game of show and tell under the stars, Hajime just wants to point out the brightest star he can find, shut his lips sealed, and say nothing else. He is worn from a day of play, but Oikawa Tooru is the chatty kind, high-pitched and all sorts of _terribly excited,_ and Hajime doesn't feel like losing.

"Oh, well, I really like aliens! And milk flavored things. And fresh crayons. And the cookies my sister bakes!"

Hajime sighs when he has to take his turn. "I like catching bugs and band aids with trucks on him. I also like cookies, but not if they're too sweet, and long baths."

" _Ew,_ Iwa-chan."

"What?"

"Bugs are dirty."

"I think they're cool."

Oikawa sits up in the grass, laughs in teasing, and helps Hajime up, too. The two of them stare ahead, right back to night-lit houses, just meters away on the smallest slope of land. Hajime wonders if this means he's going to be spending a lot of days with Oikawa like this, just talking nonsense in the dark. He wouldn't mind it if the other boy didn't whine so much.

"Well, I'll put up with the bugs," Oikawa says.

Hajime turns to face him. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." There's a giggle with his assertions.

"And why's that?"

"Because that's what friends do, Iwa-chan!"

 Hajime guesses he likes the sound of that.

 

**_x_ **

 

"Hajime, I'd like to talk to you about something," his mother tells him during dinner one night, when Hajime just wants to dig in after a day of playing with the boy three houses down from him.

"About what?"

"Your friend Tooru-kun."

Hajime puts down his fish along with a pair of chopsticks, wipes his grubby hands in his lap, and frowns up at the name.

" _Him_?" Tooru? _Oikawa Tooru,_ who smiles bright and bathes in the sun too much? Who _constantly_ demands held hands and only the shiniest bugs in the batch? _Antsy, dancing,_ _high-flying_ Oikawa Tooru, who’s taught Hajime the finer points of a well-placed _frown? Oikawa Tooru._ The other neighborhood kids call him lightning boy. Grannies call him something golden. Hajime just thinks he’s a nuisance, but not one to be avoided; he knows Oikawa isn't a bad kid, not by any stretch of the imagination, and with this he wonders why his mother has taken on such a grave tone about _Oikawa Tooru._

"Yes, him."

"What's wrong?"

"Oh, nothing, but—well, you see, he's an odd sort of boy."

"Hm. Yeah, he always eats the only popsicles in the house, even when I tell him _I_ want the last one," Hajime can't help but go on; it's a real issue, and one he'll have to reprimand Oikawa for later.

"Ah, well, I don't mean that, Hajime."

"Then?"

"Has Tooru-kun ever told you about his _number_?"

Hajime shakes his head. "I never asked."

"Well, this is very important." His mother comes from the other side of the table, kneels down by Hajime's seat, and takes his hands into her hers. "I just found this out myself, but Tooru-kun only has nine lives, Hajime."

"Like a cat?"

She laughs wearily. "I guess you could say that. My point is, I would like you to treat him well. Be kind."

"I can't promise I'll always be nice," Hajime tells his mother honestly. "He can get really annoying if I don't tell him to shut up."

" _Hajime,"_ His mother scolds.

"But...why wouldn't I be good to him, anyway?" Hajime asks, blinking. "He's my friend."

" _Ah_ , well, yes." His mother looks surprised. "Your friend."

"Do lives matter that much if he's special to me, mom?"

Getting up, his mother smiles like she's a little girl herself, springing with something splendid in her step, and pats her son extra affectionately on the way up. Hajime just stares at her, confused, and wonders why adults are bent on making things so complicated all the time.

"No, I guess they don't, huh?" she asks.

"I don't think they do." Hajime says simply. Maybe there are things he just doesn't understand yet. "Oikawa is my friend! It wouldn't matter if he only had one, or a _billion and five_!"

Hajime's mother holds onto his hand, pressing a small kiss on the back of it for safekeeping and all the world's good fortune.

"You're a lovely boy, Hajime."

 

**_x_ **

 

For the next year after Oikawa Tooru’s first death, his mother makes him stay inside during rainy days, resigning him to reruns of _Tikachu_ and various documentaries on aliens, which Hajime, reluctantly, but usually stays with him for. There's snacks, sometimes, a bit of tea if his mom's brewed a fresh pot, but most of the time Oikawa is too busy making a fuss to enjoy any of it. Hajime doesn't really mind though, because Oikawa is surprisingly quiet about his sniffs and hiccups. It's almost fascinating, really; because for all the times he has run with Oikawa in the sun, hands clasped and avoiding pitfalls and life’s other dangers, Hajime has always found the most life with his friend like this, in the solace of shared blankets.

“I want to go outside, Iwa-chan," Oikawa, half-asleep and just finished crying, leans against Hajime’s back and starts up again, snot-nosed and probably ugly, if the other boy could just get a look at him past the dark. “It’s not fair that I always have to stay inside. I want to jump in puddles.”

Hajime grunts out a sigh. “It’s not _all the time_. Just during storms. You died in the rain last time, and your mom gets worried.”

“I’m not _always_ going to die in the rain," Oikawa pouts.

“She doesn’t want you dying at all, dummy.” Hajime has built up a habit of flicking Oikawa on the head, sharp enough to elicit an _‘ow,’_ but not hard enough to cause any real damage. Oikawa gives up a laugh at this, yelping from the tears he still hasn’t finished spilling, but still showing his real smile nonetheless. Hajime grins in the darkness of the room too, because this is what he means by seeing the real Oikawa, by finding the most life; for all the pretty bravado he puts on with the unsuspecting adults, all to get extra candy or pocket money, the dawdling toes, the thin-lipped smiles, Oikawa Tooru is best seen in all honesty, without the sham of an impromptu show.

“ _Nine_ kawa," Hajime calls after him, almost with affection. He thinks the sound of his voice sounds _gross_ leaving off his lips, but Oikawa just nuzzles into Hajime’s shoulder a little closer, puffing out breathy laughter against his shoulder.

“Hey, Iwa-chan. Don’t you think it’s weird, being friends with me?” Oikawa asks out the silence, when they’re both lying on the rug on their backs and letting another documentary run by on mute.

“Why? Because all you do is watch alien shows?” Hajime jokes. “Or because of those ugly purple pajama pants you wear at night?”

Oikawa attempts to kick Hajime from across the floor, but Hajime dodges without too much of a problem.

“I’m serious, Iwa-chan.”

“Okay," Hajime says. “Why is it weird?” he asks next, humoring Oikawa with rolling eyes, but he knows to back down when the other boy is serious about this. Hajime has to respect all things _serious,_ especially if it's him. With a huff of breath, strong in exhale but scared of the other side, of all their imminent deaths, of whatever Oikawa wants to ask next, Hajime musters the most severe sort of calm a kid can.

" _What's wrong_?" Hajime approaches in a whisper, just as Oikawa's flicker up in fear, in a way that says he never wants to speak again.

"Nevermind!" Oikawa mashes his lips closed.

"You started it. Now I want to know."

"No!"

"But it _bothers_ you."

Oikawa opens his mouth to speak and finds no words, so Hajime just waits for him to reclaim them.

"What if I run out of lives before you?" Oikawa blurts out. "Why would you be friends with someone with just nine lives?"

Hajime feels a lump drop, deep from the cliffs of his throat and into the pit of his queasy stomach. He kind of wants to laugh.

"Because you're not just my friend, stupid," Hajime plasters another smile on his face, incredulous, _dumbfounded_ that Oikawa would ask this, _dumbfounded_ that he's actually getting upset about this, too.

"Iwa-chan?" Oikawa gulps down his own shakiness. "Are you crying?"

"No."

"Iwa-chan!"

Hajime muffles his answer against the bunched-up cloth of his blanket and shuts his eyes to the eerie television glow of the room. He pretends it is a bonfire, warm and steady.

‘ _I think you're my best friend, you idiot,’_ Hajime mumbles again, honest to the point where he feels like his chest is opening up to something gaping and exposed.

_You're my best friend._

_Whether you've got a billion and five lives, whether you've got nine, whether you've got one._

_Whether you've got no time left at all._

_You're my best friend, Oikawa Tooru._

Of course, these are things a six year old’s mind can barely accentuate, and Hajime can barely believe he’s forming the thoughts at all, but he knows they’re real. He knows it from the way he doesn’t shout at Oikawa _just this once_ for taking his hand when he least expects it.

He knows from the way he falls asleep on Oikawa’s floor, dreamless but wishing for better days to come.

 

**_x_ **

 

The next morning, Oikawa’s mother approaches Hajime with a request. He wonders if mothers are naturally drawn to him.

“Will you look after my son, Hajime-kun?” She asks.

“Oh, um. Sure, I guess.”

Her smile is just like her son’s, something breezy and slightly insincere, before he watches it blossom into all-encompassment. Hajime takes notice of the way it falls after a second though, worn and weakened from years of limited lives and premature burials. Feeling his stomach drop again, Hajime swallows, stiffens up, and hopes that her son's smiles never fade that fast.

"Thank you, my dear boy."

Hajime nods.

"Iwa-chan?" Oikawa comes stumbling into the room, eyes still puffy and red from crying last night.

Hajime scowls for something he can't place, eats up the soreness in his own chest, and puts on a brave face for the new day. He hops from his place at the table, blinks twice at Oikawa's mother, and yanks the other Oikawa by the firm grip of a hand, pulling him towards the backyard to play.

 

**_x_ **

 

 

 

Oikawa Tooru is seven, deathless for the past two years, and positively stunned that his best friend would have more lives than him.

"I really don't get it," Oikawa says to Hajime as he presses a _Tikachu_ band-aid over his right knee, one to match the dinosaur one on his left. Hajime just scowls at him, but admits that he's right on some strange cosmic level, because Oikawa Tooru always keeps himself pristine and untouched and well-deserving of a thousand lives. Hajime, with his hands in the dirt and skin covered in bandaids, looks more like hell, the picture of a _nine-lifer_ on a regular basis.

But, no—this is what Oikawa is. Nine lives. No more, and soon to be less. Hajime wonders if the gods think they're funny. They're probably laughing right now.

"Well, have you died lately?" Hajime asks Oikawa, taking the time to lace up his shoes. He's a bit wary to keep them unattended after his cousin's first death tripping down the stairs a week ago, and he thinks he could do without the fall, too. Looking over at Oikawa's sneakers, he sees he's left them untied, just ready for a second death, but he doesn't seem to care. Oikawa's bare heels lift out of his perfectly white sneakers, like he's ready to ascend right then and there out of something unfettered _._

"Oi, tie your shoes, stupid," Hajime quips, lips pursed. Oikawa doesn't seem to hear him, more concerned with the bunch of older kids playing ball at the other end of the park lane. _Volleyball? Something else? No, it's certainly volleyball._ Either way, if Oikawa is about to go running off to join them, like Hajime suspects he will, he should at least dash off in tied shoes. But just as he's about to tie them for his best friend, this silly boy with only nine lives, a number that people in their _sixties_ normally have, Hajime gets the grand idea that Oikawa should learn to take care of himself, too.

"Iwa-chan, let's go play with them! Please?" Oikawa asks, with a pout of his lips. Hajime resists the urge to flick him on the head right then and there. He is not here for any of Oikawa's sweet-faced schemes.

"No."

"I'm saying _please,_ though!" Oikawa pleads, like he's using the world's most valuable currency.

Hajime sighs, seven going on thirty-nine. "I don't know, your mom did tell me to look after you, and I'm not sure _that's_ the way to go." Hajime looks over at the court with something lingering, because he's certainly intrigued too, but hides it away for their both sakes.

" _Please,_ " Oikawa actually begs, the exact opposite of that, clasping his hands together. "I promise I'll be careful, Iwa-chan."

"No."

"Iwaaaa-chan."

Hajime scowls down at Oikawa's feet. "Tell you what? I'm not budging until you tie your shoes. And I'm _not_ gonna tie them for you."

Petulant, Oikawa groans and gets down on one knee, ties his shoes, and waves his hands at the half-hearted job. With this, Hajime relents (mostly because he's curious about how the ball flies over the net, too) and follows Oikawa onto the court, too. The older kids don't let either of them play, and Oikawa gets them into further trouble by teasing another boy for his big ears. Hajime and Oikawa end up on the asphalt for that, bleeding and bruised and scuffed up, but neither of them can claim death this time, fortunately.

Wiping the blood from his nose, Oikawa watches how uncoordinated the other children are with the ball, how graceless their endeavors are.

"We can do better than that," he says, without teasing.

Hajime really gets a look at him. Sometimes Oikawa gets this look in his face like he wants to dance and fight someone at the same instance.

"Hm." Hajime isn't sure about the dancing part, but he can count himself in for the fight. "I guess we'll have to show them, huh?"

Getting up, Oikawa's toes lift off the ground and his eyes fly wide open, like he's seeing the world for the first time—flashing interest blooming into something more.

The first time, it was aliens.

For this _first time,_ it is volleyball, his world just one spinning ball like a globe on its axis, and Oikawa is examining each stitch on its surface like a new country to be conquered. Hajime watches the game unfold, the way hands meet the ball in a jump serve, powerful and _bold_ and _real_ , unlike the _aliens_ in Oikawa’s favorite stories _,_ and Hajime must admit he enjoys the tangibility of it all, too.

“Don’t you think it’s amazing, Iwa-chan?” Oikawa asks, breathless, still watching.

“Yeah,” Hajime answers conservatively, although it’s hard to get excited, too.

So because he never quite liked aliens _anyway_ , Hajime decides to follow Oikawa Tooru into this new world. By nightfall, the two of them have drudged up enough pocket change to buy their first volleyball.

(And when they connect, all clumsy forearms and dull thuds of slapping palms, Hajime feels like he’ll be with Oikawa for the long run— _nine lives_ be damned.)

 

**_x_ **

 

By the time Iwaizumi Hajime is about to die for the first time, he is almost ten and it is nothing cool like the strike of lightning. He is bedridden, suffering from a severe, _severe_ bout of this season's flu, right on the precipice of his tenth summer, and he knows his days are numbered. His mother comes in everyday with a flu mask of her own and a tray of all Hajime's favorite foods, but he feels too sick to even move his soup spoon. He props himself up in bed when Oikawa comes to visit though, who's wearing a flu mask of his own and presenting a volleyball for the two of them to practice with today.

"I can't believe your mom let you over here," Hajime groans out. "The doctor says I should be dead within two days. I'm contagious." He coughs a little, feels a sea of something flushed rise up all over his body, and sinks further into his mattress.

"Well, it's not fun being by yourself for this stuff," Oikawa muses, not exactly _sad,_ but definitely more reserved than usual.

"I'd rather be alone. This isn't exactly the best way to go."

Oikawa laughs. "You're going to die from a snot overload."

"I'll kill you," Hajime tells him with little conviction, frankly too dejected to do much else. He hates to admit this, but he wishes he'd die a cooler death than _the flu,_ because it's not exactly something to brag about. The other kids in class who have had their firsts usually boast about falling into rivers or getting hit by speeding cars; Oikawa, _the stupid boy wonder,_ had gotten hit by _lightning,_ of all things. But of course Hajime's first death would come by the ways of a high fever and sneeze attacks. How unspectacular _._ Hajime sighs about it and faces away from Oikawa about this, too weak to actually punch him today.

"Aw, don't bring me down to eight, now," Oikawa pouts. "I've still got a whole volleyball career ahead of me."

"Whatever, _Nine_ kawa," Hajime huffs out. "Why don't you go back to practicing, then, instead of wasting your time here?"

Oikawa looks perplexed by the question. "Because it's not fun being sick. Having me around makes being bedridden seven thousand, six-hundred and fifty-nine times better!"

"That's _random_."

"I thought it'd make things more interesting."

"I didn't even know you could count that high," Hajime jokes, and Oikawa looks completely offended. Still, they both break into laughter, one full of life despite the lack of it, and one on the verge of dying altogether.

"You'll be okay for next week's game, right?" Oikawa asks. It's the first time he'll be starting as a setter, and even in his haze, Hajime knows how important this is to him. Besides, he's been designated the _ace,_ too, whatever that means for an boy in elementary school, and he's itching to get out there all the same.

"Of course," Hajime smirks from his pillow.

"Okay." Oikawa is satisfied with the answer. "Say, Iwa-chan, can I tell you stories? It'll help the time pass faster."

Hajime nods, feeling heavy, head hazy from fever.

"Do whatever you want."

Hajime falls asleep to the sound of Oikawa's muffled voice, of tales through told through his flu mask. Half dreaming, he hears of Oikawa's ancestors, of warlords and overzealous businessmen, all of them too young and bright and moving too fast to leave leftover lives for their next of kin. Hajime thinks about how wretched that is. Oikawa just hopes he can live up to their towering heights.

And just when he's about to die, the first out of his twenty-fifth, Hajime opens his eyes once more, lets Oikawa be the last sight he sees, and lets himself drift into the clouds, like he’s been lifted.

 

**_x_ **

 

Hajime thinks the void smells of air salonpas.

On the other side, Oikawa braids together a mourning bracelet.

 

**_x_ **

 

Hajime returns to earth three days after his first death, wearing a smart black suit and shiny dress shoes. Any cloudiness from his flu has rescinded into absolute clarity, like the gods themselves have treated him, and Hajime suddenly feels like he can run a thousand miles. So that's what he does, kick off his shoes and _run,_ away from his reappearance point, under a high-hanging birdhouse in his grandmother's flower garden. His mother, gasping, chases after him down the street, calls of ' _Hajime!'_ caught happily in her throat.

Two hours after coming back from the dead, Hajime laces up his gym shoes and practices with the grade school team. The other kids ask him what death feels like, but Hajime really doesn’t think much of it. To him, it feels like falling asleep, just a little deeper than usual.

His eyes meet Oikawa’s from across the room, where he’s serving for the other practice team today.

With the most graceful jump serve he’s seen all day, _graceful_ as any grade schooler can get, Hajime knows Oikawa is telling him, _‘welcome back.’_

Hajime finds a bracelet of twine on the club room floor later, obviously picked at from time to time. He picks it up, tosses it into the trash, and pretends it didn't belong to Oikawa.

 

**_x_ **

 

Oikawa starts his tenure at Kitagawa Daiichi Middle School with a lie, written cleanly on a piece of survey paper. Hajime looks at the question again, just to make sure he’s read it right, but when he knows there’s no way he’s actually mistaken, he takes Oikawa’s questionnaire into his possession and comes to the verge of ripping it right in half. Pinching the page in between his fingers, Hajime looks at the number again, a daring _forty-five_ , and almost scoffs.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me.” Hajime turns to Oikawa, who’s taken to innocently tying his shoe on the ground. He’s gotten good at that the past couple of years, _never leaving his shoes untied_ , but this blatant lie of _forty-five_ is more than enough to make Hajime forget smaller victories like neatly laced sneakers.

“Isn’t it funny, Iwa-chan? How no one ever really checks your number? You can just make things up.” Oikawa laughs, a little too pleasantly. There’s too much of a hum in his voice, and Hajime hates the false breeze that comes out of his _feints._

“Lying is a horrible idea," Hajime says.

Oikawa shrugs, zipping up his gym bag slinging it over his shoulder. “I do what I have to do. No one’s going to let me on a team if I tell them I’ve only got _nine_ lives.” He doesn’t shrink when he says the number this time, because it’s just him and Hajime outside the second gymnasium this afternoon, but he usually keeps the number quiet aside from close friends and family.

"Oikawa."

"What, Iwa-chan?" Oikawa turns back to face him, smile wide and pleasant. It _pisses_ Hajime off to no end, just how well he switches to these facades of his. "Are you gonna tell me not to join, too? I'm not made of glass, you know."

Hajime clenches his fists in his pockets and resists the urge to tell him off altogether. "Listen, I know as well as anyone that you want to play, because I want to, too. But...just.” He hates putting this into words. He hates feeling the lump form in the back of his throat. Hajime sighs. _Consider the fact that accidents happen. Just consider the fact that you only have nine lives._

“Just don’t get yourself in too much trouble," Hajime manages to say.

“Trouble follows trouble," Oikawa says with a tiny smirk. He picks up something pleasant along the way and leans his head up towards the mid spring sun, effortless and free, but Hajime can tell he’s irritated from the way his eyes squint up and somehow find a way to glaze over.

“Iwa-chan.”

Hajime finds this call of _Iwa-chan_ even more annoying than usual. Getting up from the grass and hearing a third-year call for the both of them from inside the gym, he thinks it’s better than trying to get through Oikawa Tooru’s thick skull. Let him sulk outside, in all his plastered smiles and feigned graces.

Oikawa reaches onto Hajime’s wrist, digging into his skin with shaking fingers. He’s no longer looking up at the sun, but at the grass below, head hung low. Hajime hates seeing this more than the shows he usually puts on.

“Yes?” Hajime asks, softening. Oikawa lets his grasp fall and presses his palm into his other, sounding a light smack that makes Hajime nearly jump in place.

“Please don't start pitying me, too," Oikawa tells him, “not like my mom, or yours. Not like the other kids on the playground. _Watch me_ , because I’m going to be great someday. I’m gonna play and play and _play._ ” He stifles back something choked, fettered from the honesty of things, and doesn’t say anything else about the matter.

“I’m never going to pity you about anything,” Hajime says as he mashes the palm of his hand into Oikawa’s hair, “never in a million years, you idiot.” He cracks a smile before burying it away a second later. “I’m just telling you be careful about things.”

Oikawa nods, slowly, reluctantly, because he knows. He must know that Hajime is just trying to set him straight on things.

“Okay.”

 

**_x_ **

 

Oikawa still ends up lying about the number of lifespans he has, anyway. When he gives the application over to the team captain, he stares over cautiously at Hajime, who’s just taken to shaking his head in the other corner of the gym.

Eyes brighten up, back to that facade, and tell Hajime, _‘it’ll all be okay.’_

(And after Oikawa throws a peace sign up at him for extra reassurance, Hajime can’t resist spiking a volleyball right at the back of his head. The setter whines, shouting at him, _“you could’ve killed me!”_ but Hajime just scoffs right back; he knows it takes more than that to kill the likes of Oikawa Tooru.)

 

**_x_ **

 

They die together the next time.

The two of them suffer their untimely deaths at the bottom of the ocean, and Hajime wonders, while sinking, if there’s a worse word for drowning. Like lightning, because he really is seeing his own life flash before his eyes, he strikes at the memories that matter most—stag beetles, his mother’s mourning bracelets, Miyagi during a sunset, the flu, volleyball, _the time they first connected, twenty-four to nine, Oikawa Tooru himself, the very boy drowning next to him, hands held until their last breaths_ —and lets himself fall blank. Hands unclasp, but not by their own fruition. Hajime imagines their whole team will make the evening news later, hurried reports between local weather and sports.

_“The entire Kitagawa Daiichi Middle School Volleyball Team was tragically killed today when their bus collided with a guard railing on the cliffside, sending all twenty-two people overboard.”_

Hajime’s return takes thirty minutes this time, a new record for anyone in the Iwaizumi family.

_“There were no survivors.”_

He clicks off the television, loosens his tie, and sits back against the wall with his head in his hands. His mother has left him a cup of tea for a small consolation, because drowning is certainly not an easy way to go by any stretch of the imagination, but Hajime doesn’t feel like drinking any of it. He tries to calm down by counting to twenty-three, thinks of the two lives he’s already lost in just under two years, and tells himself to be more careful. _Twenty-three._ Hajime thinks he can still lead a fulfilling existence with twenty-three lives. He counts again, right until the point where the shaking settles into nothing for him, and lets himself fall asleep for the rest of the evening.

 

**_x_ **

 

When Hajime wakes up the next morning, Oikawa Tooru still has not returned.

His mother slips a mourning bracelet on his wrist on his way to school, and Oikawa’s _seagreen_ matches perilously with the blue in his veins.

“Your skin looks pale, Hajime," she says. “Don’t worry too much. He’ll be back soon.”

Hajime fiddles with his bracelet the whole day before throwing it away that same night.

 

**_x_ **

 

It takes two weeks for Oikawa to come back to the world this time, but he doesn’t have much to say about it. On the day of his resurrection, he comes straight to practice in the standard mourning suit and polished dress shoes, explains himself to the coach, switches out his black blazer for trainers and the Kitagawa Daiichi standard VBC uniform. When his first jump serve clears the net without question, he still clicks his tongue anyway, because he _never, ever_ means to aim at the libero, but he’s done just that and it just adds to the gym’s fowl mood. Hajime thinks a team-wide death will tend to do that. A lull seems abound.

“Oikawa-kun, lookin’ sharp," the coach tells him anyway, jotting down notes on his clipboard. Hajime doesn’t feel all that well today (he swears he can still feel water filling up his nose, the phantom dizziness of losing oxygen, like a sort of dying all over again) so he’s voluntarily benched himself today with two other kids on the team. Oikawa still plays tirelessly anyway, though Hajime suspects he might still be drowning too, from the way he picks at his ears like they’re waterlogged.

Their coach says to the advisor, “he’s certainly going to be a star one day, if he keeps working the way he does.”

Hajime stares out at the court, the way Oikawa’s hands meet the ball like this is the last serve he’ll ever get to make, and holds his breath the second he slings his arm in release.

“I agree," the advisor says. “He’s growing—in power, in height, in precision. He’ll get up there one day for sure.”

Nodding curtly to himself, partially out of a feeling of _I-can’t-lose-to-stupid-Eightkawa,_ but mostly out of something reluctantly proud, Hajime turns away from his coaches so they don’t think he’s eavesdropping. Oikawa has landed from his twentieth jump serve of the day by this time, catching himself buckling on a tired knee and charging right up towards the net, anyway.

“And it’s great, that he has the lifespan to go with it, too. Kid’s got a number in the forties, if I remember his application correctly.”

Hajime snaps his attention back to them, sees the glint in their eyes, and almost wants to laugh.

“You’ve got them fooled, huh, stupid _Eight_ kawa?” he mumbles into the towel around his neck.

“Iwaizumi-kun?”

“ _Huh_? Ah, yes, coach?”

“Did you say something, Iwaizumi-kun?”

Realizing the extent of his own reveries, Hajime presses the numbers out of his mind, all eights and the passing of nines, and shakes his head in a lie. “No, sir. It’s nothing," he says, reddening a little and meeting Oikawa by the eyes. It doesn’t take Hajime long to join him on the court after that, even if it’s only to practice a bit on his receives.

 

**_x_ **

 

Hajime finds a genealogy of Oikawa’s ancestors one day in the winter, realizes he was never lying about the warlords or the overzealous businessmen, and finds a whole album filled with diehards _,_ all of them gone too soon but gone in grace, nonetheless.

 _"Hey, just wondering,"_ Hajime had approached Oikawa one winter day like this years ago, curious and sick of watching replays of professional European volleyball games, " _why do you have so few lives?"_

 _"That's a rude question,"_ Oikawa had spat right back at him, pouting because that's what Oikawa does best. _"And you should know the answer already."_

_"I find it hard to believe that your relatives left you no extra lives at all."_

_"Well, that's what happened."_

In their current winter, too cold to run or toss the ball outside, Hajime pours over the album like a book of genesis.

 

 ** _Oikawa Katamori_** _._ Hajime reaches his hand over old pictures, grainy art reproductions of the _daimyo_ in his prime, dressed to the nines in a feudal lord's garb, second only to the shogun in rank. From the local historical file: _Oikawa Katamori was a tireless lord for his small, but illustrious estate, devoted to raising not only the most adept militia in the region, and also ensured more efficient farming practices and near-compulsory education standards. He died at the age of thirty, due to over-exhaustion. He left no lives for his next-of-kin._

 

 ** _Oikawa Chiharu._** Under her spot in the album, there is an actual photograph this time, the black-and-yellowed sort all the way back from the Meiji era. She has a stern look about her, outwardly cheerless, unlike the _nefariously cheery_ Oikawa Tooru. Under her photo rests a letter from her to a colleague: _My dear friend, I regret to inform you that we still have made no progress in this iron-working project. How are we to change this country, if we cannot build from earth's treasures? I am appalled, and continue to swear myself to my research. I hear a team in Kitakyushu is close to making a breakthrough, and I refuse to be beaten._

 

Oikawa looks over his shoulder from his bed, resting his manual on his stomach.

"Ah, I've read hers before. Mom said she died at the age of ninety, _always_ in the mills even until her last day. She had so many accidents that she only left two lives for the next generation. Sad, I guess," he remarks, a little _too_ offhandedly, staring back up at his book. This sends shivers down Hajime's spine, but he forges on despite his queasiness.

 

 ** _Oikawa Hideo._** _Diet_ politician in the 1960's, obsessed with a crusade against corruption. Ultimately died from stress, a premature heart attack at the age of twenty-eight. Left no lives for next-of-kin.

 

"Apparently he was funny at holiday parties."

 

 ** _Oikawa Katsuro._** Cartographer, adventurer. Died many times in the high mountains, in attempt to reach various summits all over the world. Dead at forty-five. Left only one life for his next-of-kin.

 

"Ah, that uncle used to take me sledding. Good guy."

 

The list goes on. _Oikawa._ An accomplished poet feels stifled by the upstarts in her field. _Oikawa._ A telegram delivery boy meets his end during s tireless search for a recipient without an address. _Oikawa._ The family's only florist falls from a tall tree in the Chilean rain forests in reaching for unspecified breed of _tropical anemone._

Oikawa, _Hajime's Oikawa,_ still very much alive, sits up in bed, takes the book out of the other boy's hands, and stows it back away under his mattress.

"So, it's obvious why I don't have many lives to begin with, isn't it?" Oikawa tells Hajime, slipping his bedsheets back into place. He wipes his hands clean like he's just gotten blood on them, though all Hajime sees is a thin cloud of rising dust.

Hajime still has his mind half-caught in _mountain ranges and poem stanzas._ "Well, your family has done some amazing stuff," he says without the usual ire he leaves for Oikawa.

"But bright things fade fast, don't you know?" Oikawa says, voice soft like he's actually found a sick fondness in all of this.

They let silence hang there for a moment, and Hajime feels the odd urge to tell Oikawa to _shut up,_ because he is not an overachieving _daimyo,_ or an inventor in the steel mills. Because he may be bright, brighter than anything Hajime's ever seen, he is not the lightning that brought him from ten to nine all those years ago.

Hajime says nothing of the sort, though. He is good at saying _shut up._ Just not the kind that will quiet the rumblings in Oikawa Tooru's crowded head.

"Well, no one ever asked you to be a poet, too," Hajime tells him. "Leave the _bright stuff_ and the _fading_ to people who actually write."

Oikawa actually laughs a little at this. "Yeah?" he asks.

"Yeah."

"So you wouldn't call me bright then, Iwa-chan?"

Hajime turns away when Oikawa regains a semblance of his _pouting_ form, and finds himself simultaneously annoyed and just a bit relieved. Oikawa looms over Hajime's shoulder in turn, his mere presence teasing in itself, and bites back the urge to say, _'I think you're absolutely brilliant.'_

Because frankly, he doesn't want Oikawa's head to swell even more.

Because honestly, he doesn't want to imagine losing his best friend at all.

 

**_x_ **

 

Within the next year and a half, two titans come onto the court and drive Oikawa to the point of something sacrosanct.

_“Why can’t we win?”_

Ushijima Wakatoshi is one hundred lives' worth of brawn and relentless energy, dragging down spikes like meteors through a hapless atmosphere. He beats Kitagawa Daiichi every time, almost singlehandedly, and Hajime is left with the red _missed-block_ marks on his forearms to prove it. Oikawa starts practicing his jump serves more after each loss—it feels like dozens after dozens each time—because he must want to feel heaven's force in his palms, too. The setter goes on and on and _on_ like this, until he can barely stand and his eyes blip open and closed in weariness. Sometimes, Hajime thinks the sweat lining Oikawa's collar looks like it's choking him.

_“My name is Kageyama Tobio, and I came from Akiyama Elementary School. I’ve been playing volleyball since the second grade. It’s a pleasure to work with you!”_

Kageyama Tobio is another story. He is not a god yet, but has the makings of one, graced with a respectable fifty lives and a genius's touch for the ball. He looks breathless every time his fingers are about to make contact, and in the split second Hajime glances over at Oikawa, he knows he can see it, too. Hajime is actually rather taken with how effortless the ball looks in Kageyama's hands, and how he never rests on his laurels despite his talent, but Oikawa looks at him like an open wound, a pestilence on the upper court.

At this, Oikawa starts running six days a week instead of four. He saves his strongest serves for after-dark practices, when Kageyama can't see, and leaves every session with an overcast's worth of bruises. Hajime tries to look after him at every turn, but he knows he can't stop Oikawa completely—because for all the gods he's trying to trounce, Oikawa has become one in his own right, too. Hajime feels this with every outgrown centimeter, every slammed serve, every captain's call, a voice no longer a child's. Oikawa himself has yet to look in a mirror.

_"You're overworking yourself!"_

Still, these changes doesn't scare Hajime that much. Golden boys are forged by lightning strikes, fleeting and gone in a solitary flash, but Hajime has no intentions of letting Oikawa disappear that fast. He refuses to let Oikawa fade alone.

**_x_ **

 

These days, when Oikawa runs in the mornings, he chooses paths facing away from the sunrise.

 

_x_

 

“You’re overworking yourself,” Hajime drones on once more, when Oikawa skips lunch to practice again.

The setter doesn’t listen this time either, but that doesn’t mean Hajime will stop trying.

 

**_x_ **

 

“You’re overworking yourself.”

“Iwa-chan, don’t worry so much! You’ll get wrinkles if you keep doting on me.” Oikawa’s words are the sweet kind, but the way they leave his mouth tastes like venom. His laugh is halfhearted, and his serve strikes the court with zero command.

 

**_x_ **

 

"Oikawa-san! Please show me how to serve!"

Kageyama is bright-eyed and eager. He has no idea that Oikawa only wants to smite him.

The palm of Oikawa's hand almost meets Kageyama's cheek that day, but it never does because Hajime's there to stop it. With all the restraint in the world, bursting at the seams, he tells Kageyama to go home, calm like athird year _should_ be _(‘Sorry,’_ Oikawa had said to Kageyama in turn, trapped in waves of his own making, his own disbelief, but hardly composed at all _)_ and lets himself unravel when he's alone with Oikawa. There's a bunch of scolding on Hajime's end, more vehement than usual, and Oikawa clenches his fists and throws his head up into the air in telling him off, too.

“There’s no way I can have composure! I want to win, I want to go to nationals!”

No, _well,_ Hajime knows it’s not just at him—but the sight of Oikawa _screaming,_ voice still lulled somewhat, _smooth,_ like a pretty sort of storm, still pisses Hajime off.

“‘I’ this, ‘I’ that. It’s annoying!”

Hajime slams his head into Oikawa’s nose and sends the weary setter back on the floor. “Do you think you’re fighting by yourself?” He is his own storm, by now. “You’ve got to be kidding, you dumbass!”

Oikawa doesn’t say anything. Hajime reaches for him by the shirt collar. “If you think how you’re doing equals how the team will do, I’ll punch you!”

“You already did!”

“There’s no one on our team who can beat Ushiwaka one-on-one!” Hajime drags Oikawa closer to him. “But there are _six players_ on a volleyball court!”

And like someone finding their reveries for the first time, Oikawa finds the will to actually laugh, and Hajime lightens his grip on him altogether. He begins to wonder if he hit Oikawa too hard, or if he’s finally succombing to the fatigue, but Oikawa ends up standing tall on his own, beaming up at the ceiling lights like he’s discovered a galaxy on his own.

"Hey, sorry, did I headbutt you too hard?" Hajime asks, face relaxing into a mere frown. _Worried_ , actually, even if he'll only half-admit it.

Oikawa keeps laughing, light as air itself. Hajime stands up too, wobbly-kneed and trembling, not quite reaching the same heights Oikawa does, but he feels the same release nonetheless. In his own place among mortals, he thinks that the sky between them is a short one, anyway.

"I suddenly feel invincible.”

Hajime stares on, feels the sky between them lengthen for just a second, and lets it fall into the stratosphere he's always, always shared with Oikawa. Oikawa, tired like any boy would be at this point, slumps his head against Hajime's shoulder and presses another laugh into his jacket, spurts of nosebleed staining the cloth. After a while, a small minute stretched into infinity, Hajime feels Oikawa's weight shift onto him until he's keeping him up altogether. Hajime lets the weight of both of them buckle underneath him, settled and all sorts of relieved. He won't admit that he feels like crying about this.

"More importantly, Iwa-chan, is _dumbass_ the only insult you know?" Oikawa asks, at peace.

"Do you want to bleed from the other nostril, too?" Hajime asks right back, wanting to laugh. Just as Oikawa lets himself settle into the nape of his best friend's neck, breathing slowing into the verge of sleep, Hajime tells himself not to get pulled into it, too. One of them has to stay awake.

"Say, Iwa-chan?"

"What is it now, _Eight_ kawa?"

"Well, that's just it," Oikawa sighs. "I think I'll need a new nickname, soon."

Hajime lets a hand settle on Oikawa's back, fingers curled over the split of his spine. At this point, he does let himself cry, even if the tears never leave the pit of his eyes. He sniffs back, nods, and knows this was coming all along. Hajime thinks of the Oikawa family album under the mattress, the way Oikawa's breath catches with each hard-fought serve, the way he almost stumbles over himself during runs sometimes, when he thinks no one's watching. Of course Oikawa had worked himself to the brink, to the bone.

"Hey, Iwa-chan?"

Hajime holds his ground. "Yeah?" He doesn't feel right, calling his best friend _Sevenkawa_ already. There's no point mourning games that haven't been lost yet, and he thinks it's the same with lives he's about to lose, too.

"What does it feel like, when you go?"

Hajime scoffs, clearing his throat. "Like you don't know? We've both done this before."

"No, I mean...when _you...you know,"_  Oikawa clarifies. "What's it like for you?"

"Oh, that." Hajime nods. "Ah, well. I guess it feels like falling asleep. People say that's what it's like, usually."

Oikawa hums pleasantly, his whole body limp against Hajime's at this point, the rhythm of his breath steady and at ease. Hajime would normally shove him off, but he doesn't this time.

"You know what's funny?" Oikawa asks. "It's never felt that way to me. I think this might be the first time it’s ever felt like sleeping to me. It's nice."

"Really? How does it feel like then, for you?" Hajime asks him. He gives a gentle tug just slightly at the end of Oikawa's hair, teasing almost, because Hajime is capable of that, too.

Oikawa laughs, before gathering his final thoughts.

"Like I've been electrocuted," Oikawa tells Hajime, neither sullen or with any sort of whimsy. A kind of in-between. "Like, there's so much left to do, so many places to reach, and I haven't gotten to any of it yet. That's what it feels like."

Hajime shakes his head. He feels his cheek, burning hot and sticky with tears, brushed up against Oikawa's cold skin.

"Dumbass," he tells Oikawa. "You've always got tomorrow."

"Hm, I guess so. I do, don't I?"

"Yeah." Hajime nods this time. "Everything will be better tomorrow."

"All right."

"Guess I better go now, right? It's hard to stay awake."

"Go to sleep, _Seven_ kawa."

"Good night, Hajime."

And when Oikawa Tooru does go this time, the rise and fall of his chest sinking into nothingness altogether, Hajime can't help but feel a world of relief. He traces Oikawa's spine again, says a small prayer for a safe passage back, and leaves him for the heavens to collect him.

Hajime, co-captain of the Kitagawa Daiichi volleyball team, is the one to lock up the second gymnasium that night. He turns the key, wipes off the tears, and tells himself about the promise of the next day.

 

**_x_ **

 

Oikawa does come back the next day, nose fortunately unbroken, spirits raised. He's already in the gym by the time Hajime gets there in the morning, in the throes of practicing his tosses with some second years, but there's nothing strained about the way he connects with his sets today; for all the times Hajime has called Kageyama _beautiful_ with the ball, he thinks Oikawa looks absolutely mythic this morning, fingers adept with rediscovered grace. Even the sweat on his face beads with something pretty. Whatever it is, Hajime's glad Oikawa has found his finesse again, because the self-doubt was wearing thin on his patience, anyway.

"Hey. Give me the ball next," Hajime tells Oikawa, slipping his knee pads into place and grounding himself on the court.

Oikawa blinks twice, shows just the slightest inkling of something _bashful_ (Hajime thinks an honest heart to heart will do that to a person) before regaining form. He smirks, actually has the _nerve_ to bat his eyelashes, like he’s been reborn to _flirt,_ and watches Hajime devolve into something disgusted.

“The usual?” he asks, hugging the ball to his stomach like a friend he’s made up with.

Hajime nods. “A little higher this time. Your past couple of tosses have been a little low.”

“Oh, but you always end up hitting them anyway, right, Iwa-chan?” Oikawa chuckles. “But I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks for telling me.”

“Yeah, no problem, but enough with the chit-chat. I wanna spike already.”

“Got it, _Iwa-chan,"_ Oikawa actually singsongs. Hajime clenches his fists for another punch to the gut, but he secretly presses the liveliness to his heart.

 

**_  
x_ **

 

That  first spike feels clean and complete in Hajime’s hands, like an orbit caught in perfect alignment.

After slamming it down, he nods over to Oikawa with a small nod, to which the setter just smiles back with a squint in his eyes. It is not feigned, but oddly breathless, caught up in something the wing-spiker can’t place immediately; and just when Hajime tells himself to tear away, he comes up with the word for it, one he wouldn’t be certain of if Oikawa Tooru wasn’t his best friend.

Caught up in something _thankful._

It disappears after a second, because that’s what Oikawa is good at—shifting from mask to mask, devilish smiles to whistling grins, spacey wonder to something much, _much_ more focused on the court—but Hajime knows. He can’t _not_ know.

With another toss, Oikawa hones in on the spin, pushes forward with a jump into the air, and breathes out with a laugh, free and aching to keep finding this sort of forever. Hajime accepts the ball, slams it down with everything he has, and lets himself run away with the imaginary words in his head.

_‘Thank you, Iwa-chan.’_

Oikawa comes over, offers a hand to slap in a high-five, and tells Hajime, _“nice job.”_ His palm lingers much too long on his shoulder next, like Oikawa wants to pull Hajime in for a secret, something he won’t dare tell anyone else, but he ends up saying nothing. He loses that smile of his for a moment, laughs at something Hajime doesn’t understand, and heads back up to his place on the upper court.

Hajime keeps still on the hardwood, shakes off the unexplained and slight warmth rising on the small of his back, and wonders if he’s not just imagining things, after all.

 

  
**_x_**

 

  
“You know, Iwa-chan, my third death was in your _arms,"_  Oikawa says, under the same umbrella on the way home because Hajime forgot his. “Isn’t that just _romantic_?”

Hajime kicks him in the back with the grimy side of his shoe.

“Hey, Oikawa," Hajime calls out.

“ _Yeeees_?”

“You’re pretty warped, aren’t you?”

With this, Oikawa  just laughs and lets Hajime have a little more of the umbrella. Hajime would rather walk in the goddamned rain.

 

**_x_ **

 

  
At their last middle school tournament in the Sendai Gymnasium, they don’t win against Shiratorizawa, but they take one of the sets and the _best setter’s award,_ in turn. Oikawa accepts it with shaking hands, bowing graciously to the presenter, and stands back next to Hajime in the lineup. He smiles, but Hajime suspects, no, _knows,_ that his happiness is only _mostly_ sincere, because they’ve still got summits to reach and _second places_ to burn.

During retirement speeches, Oikawa confesses to the entire team that he only has seven lives to live. _‘I’ve been lying about my number all this time.’_ He bows, low, lower than when he was receiving the award, like an apology he doesn’t want to owe in words. Some of the underclassmen look at him in disdain. The coaches whisper on and write things in their clipboards, probably because they have things to discuss with Seijou, later. Others, like Kageyama Tobio, look on reluctantly like Oikawa’s just reached the highest pillar.

Hajime looks on, glances cast at all of their reactions. Lastly, he stares over at Oikawa, sees someone who’s found some semblance of relief, and lets himself be satisfied with that.

And when they walk home, the last time from the Kitagawa Daiichi volleyball club, Oikawa cries the entire way.

“Oh, come on, _Seven_ kawa.”

“Iwa-chan!”

And unlike their ceremony in the Sendai Gymnasium, Hajime doesn’t feel the same need to do the same. There’s no need to cry this time. He just takes Oikawa’s hand, yanks him forward so no one sees how _ugly_ he actually cries, and tells him that a new day is coming.

They’re always, always coming.


	2. the panorama of things unsaid

High school does not begin with a commotion and a clamor into some new world, but something of a sigh of relief, long-held since first hitting the grounds of Aoba Jousai.

"Marvelous jump serves."

"You must have practiced very hard, young man."

"The team is lucky to have you."

Oikawa doesn’t end up getting in trouble with Seijou at all for lying about his number. In fact, they all call him a _golden boy_ , tell him they’re lucky to have him as a setter and that he's awfully brave for playing, and make notes to find safer transportation so he’ll have a chance of making it to games unscathed. They laugh about this, because Oikawa lets them, and because he’s too excited to start school to worry about anything else.

“Oh, he’s got this refreshing look about him, and having only _seven_ lives?”

“How positively _dangerous._ ”

“We should go try to chat with him, don’t you think?”

Outside the gym, home for the next three years, Hajime rolls his eyes, watches how Oikawa preens at the attention, _modestly_ but not at all, and feels a strange sort of pink rise up in his cheeks, too. He wants to call it embarassment, because this is just what it is, and walks ten paces ahead of Oikawa while some upperclassmen girls stop to talk to him.

 

**_x_ **

 

“Hey, do you know something, Iwaizumi-kun?” a girl from class asks Hajime one morning, when his mind is still buzzing from practice and his palms are still burning from repeated spikes. He holds his hands together on the desk, tries to smile, and brings his attention to the girl in question, but he cannot help but think, in aching, that Seijou’s got him on the ropes, both in body and spirit.

(It’s a great feeling though, one he wouldn’t trade for the world, and he hopes his next three years is full of this sort of toil. He dreams of it, thinks he won’t stopdreaming of it for a while, _maybe ever_ , and tells himself to drift off about it later, when he’s alone or if class gets boring again.)

“Hm?” he asks, in drowsy floating.  

“About the people you’re supposed to date?”

Hajime frowns, attention caught. “ _Supposed_ to?” He hasn’t really thought much about dating, but he doesn’t want to feel like he’s _supposed_ to do anything. He tries not to frown too much, but knows he has anyway when the other girl begins to shrink away, back into the chair in front of her. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you mean,” he says, to soften himself, and it sort of works in increments when she returns in something bouncing.

“Well, you don’t have to do this, there’s no law about it, but— _oh_ , Iwaizumi-kun, do you even care about dating?”

He thinks about this for a moment. “Well, I don’t _don’t_ care about dating. I guess it wouldn’t hurt.”

“Okay, _well_ —” she begins again, trying to find her place in her explanation. “They say it’s best to date someone who’s got around the same life numbers as you." Hajime's stomach drops. He doesn't know why. "You know, for instance, my boyfriend’s got twenty-seven lives. I’ve got twenty-eight. It kind of works out, I guess, because if I were to die tomorrow, it wouldn’t be too bad, because then we’d be even.”

“Oh.” Hajime frowns. “But...what if I were to find someone with significantly less lives as me?”

The girl laughs, almost snorts at the ridiculousness of  the suggestion. “Well, you’d be in for a lot of grief, I’d say.”

“Yes, I guess that would be the most natural thing.”

“A no-good, _terrible_ kind of love.”

“Perhaps," Hajime actually _sighs out_. He wonders if he’s dying on the spot and remembers his father’s favorite police procedurals: _The victim died of a broken heart, plucked at by a vicious flock of lovebirds. Case closed._

“Iwaizumi-kun.”

A volleyball, set by magnificent, nimble hands, comes trickling into the foray.

“Iwaizumi-kun?”

Oikawa Tooru, of all the people in the world to _dream up_ , holds up seven fingers. Gross. Despicable. Never in a billion and five years.

“Yes?” Hajime answers, half-smiling.

“Do you have anyone like that?”

“ _Me_?”

“Yes, you.”

Hajime’s eyes go wide. _No, of course not._ He stutters out a _“I don't think so,”_ barely heard at all, blames it on fatigue, and tells the girl he’s done talking about things like a no-good and terrible love. He’s far off from such things, anyway.

 

**_  
x_ **

 

"Iwa-chan, you're coming to my birthday party tomorrow, right?"

Hajime puts the ball down, suppresses a scowl of sorts, and says the habitual, _"um, yes?"_ because it's not like he ever forgets it, anyway. He thinks of the volleyball sitting in his closet, poorly wrapped because _spheres were not meant to mix with gift paper,_ and how he should have tried harder with picking something this year. Hajime considers not going at all, just to save himself the embarrassment of copping out with the usual, and that Oikawa's got other kids to keep him company this year, anyway.

But Hajime immediately discards the thought as he stares down at the handmade invitation, a poorly drawn alien and his hedgehog companion, a near-forgotten _Oikawa Tooru_ tradition, and tells himself to tough it out another year.

 

**_x_ **

 

The date is July twentieth, and the usual rainy season has extended itself by the way of a few spiteful gods.

_"The car came out of no where! Someone get help!"_

The third time Hajime dies, by the ways of a speeding car at the intersection just outside a certain someone’s favorite cake shop, he spends a whole week thinking of Oikawa Tooru in the void. They are never quite lucid thoughts—things never are, in places in like this—but Hajime knows they’re of him from how frantic they feel, like a million, mixed joules of electric memory.

Initially, there’s childish revilement, because it’s Oikawa, of all people, _that charlatan,_ and then it usually morphs into something warm and slightly jolting, like he's sorting through a flip book, or swimming through a gradient from his least to most favorite colors. In the void, Hajime sees unlaced shoes, hands held while drowning, and unwatched alien documentaries. He feels Oikawa’s mourning bracelets tied around his own wrists, hears him rally on the team in their last game, smells blood on his sweater from a nosebleed. Of the apparitions he can’t make, these memories are enough to make Oikawa Tooru into something to remember, to cherish, to feel.

To come back to.

“ _Tooru_.”

When Hajime wakes up, he smells something burning. _Summer rain._ When his vision comes to, he sees Oikawa standing from across the high-hanging birdhouse, smiling while holding onto an umbrella made for two.

“Took you long enough," Oikawa says breezily.

"I know," Hajime relents this once, resisting the  urge to chuckle, of all things. He wonders if ending his time in the void on good terms will do that to a person.  "I know,” he says again, with a little more gravity, tone taken down a notch.

“What were you thinking of in there? Did you imagine yourself winning the lottery?” With this, with one of Oikawa’s _half-sincere_ grins, eyes lowered and mouth twitching in place, Hajime watches how the other boy lifts a wrist to cover the nervous laugh coming out of his mouth. On it, a mourning bracelet hangs limply on the bone by braided threads. It’s white this time.

"I think I was having a nice dream," Hajime says towards the sky, already sick of the rain, "but I'm back, now." He ducks under the vinyl to find a space of solace from the downpour. Oikawa does not seem to mind the sudden lack of personal space.

"Good," Oikawa breathes out. "I was starting to think you wanted to stay on the other side."

"Oh, like I'd ever want that."

"Why not?"

"The real thing's always better."

And this time, Hajime's the one to untie the twine around Oikawa's hands, but he’s strangely tempted to just keep him in his palm altogether.

 

**_x_ **

 

"So, anything happen while I was gone?"

" _Ah_ , well."

" _Well_?"

Oikawa takes in a deep breath, steals the air around them, but provides little in return.

"Nothing, Iwa-chan. Positively nothing."

 

**_x_ **

 

"Hey, Iwa-chan?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you think it'll get harder, when we're older?"

"What do you mean by that?"

"I dunno. Everything?"

Hajime laughs and rolls over on the grass. Their volleyball, the one Hajime was supposed to give to Oikawa as a birthday present a week and two days ago, rolls away down the hill and onto the cobblestone of the park lane.

"The way I see it, some things will get harder, yeah. That's just how things go, you know?" Hajime answers, relaxed from a day of just tossing the ball back and forth.

"Yeah." Oikawa stretches up to see stars, even if the clouds still rule the night sky.

"But things will get easier, too. Maybe we just get used to certain things."

That night, Oikawa just rolls over on his side, plucks grass blades out of the ground, and forgets about the stars he's always wanted to reach. Hajime looks on, draws his knees close to himself, and forgets that some nights are made for a kind of unexplained mourning.

 

**_x_ **

 

Oikawa is always the last one to steal the last ice pop out of Hajime's freezer, and he never makes much of an effort to hide his obvious thieveries.

Hajime waves an empty box over his head, wondering why he ever thought the likes of Oikawa Tooru would ever have sympathy for the _recently resurrected_. "Listen, _Seven_ kawa—"

"It's six, now," he muses, adding a small ' _ah'_ at the end of his admission. Hajime guesses it was unintentional.

"What?"

Beaming up, smile as unsettled as a week's worth of non-stop rain, Oikawa blinks at Hajime from his spot at the desk, says nothing more about it, and presses the play button another scouting video for _Harukou_ with ice cream in tow.

"Oikawa, when did that happen?"

He doesn't answer, but Hajime guesses it was during his week away. This is why he hates spending too much time in the void after passing; things happen, things change, and Hajime isn't there for any of it—the emergence of new magnets on his refrigerator, a local politician announcing his candidacy for a higher post, his mother's growing vegetable garden, a national shortage on clam reserves, Oikawa dying for a fourth time. Too much can happen in a course of a week, and more often than not, Hajime feels like he's stepping back into a brand new world. On a smaller scale, his own microcosms, it feels too much like listening to a good song, ripping the earbuds out at the chorus, and coming back to the second bridge of an entirely different tune.

" _Oikawa._ " The sound of his own voice sounds like some hardly played song, too. It is neither scolding or something harsh. In softness, it seeks the truth.

Pausing the video again, Oikawa cocks his head to the side without facing Hajime at all, and shrugs.

"It has nothing to do with you, Iwa-chan, so don't worry about it so much. I just got trapped in a roaring fire..."

 _Oh, shit._ Hajime's eyes go wide.

 _"..._ saving the lives of three distressed pedigree kittens in the process."

_Oh, fuck off._

"You're kidding me."

"Yep. _Gotcha_ , Iwa-chan!"

"So, you didn't really die, then, you fucker? You're still at seven?" Hajime throws the empty ice cream box at Oikawa, but misses when he's miscalculated the usual trajectory of cardboard. But when Oikawa still doesn't dare to answer, opting to focus all his attentions on the video again, Hajime opts to keep throwing random things at him from behind until he makes contact. By time he does though, with a pillow he keeps against his headboard,  Oikawa still doesn’t budge or answer his question. Hajime gets the sense he isn’t kidding anymore.

“ _Six_?” Hajime asks gravely. He hopes his tremblings are unfounded, but Oikawa ends up nodding. They don’t say anything else for a while. Hajime is stunned into silence for once, and Oikawa rides the stillness of it like a thin veneer of relief.

 

**_x_ **

 

"How did you get to six, Oikawa?"

"I'm not telling you, Iwa-chan!"

 

**_x_ **

 

The next time Hajime asks about it, they're practicing tosses in the gym.

“So how did it happen?"

"What _ever_ do you mean, Iwa-chan?"

"Don't dodge my questions, asshole. How did you get to _six_?"

Oikawa thinks about this for a moment, and his face spreads into something sunny he knows he's got his story straight. “ _Oh,_ Iwa-chan, you just _had_ to be there," he starts, "a German supermodel was here for a photoshoot, _right here_ in Miyagi, and was kidnapped right from the set! So I brilliantly devised her escape, but was _shot_ in the process, right in the heart." Oikawa's face morphs into something comical while telling his blatant _lie_ of a story, but Hajime focuses on the way his hand scrunches up the t-shirt fabric over his chest. "Right in the heart," he repeats, "and I never saw it coming."

"Really?" Hajime asks, eyes still settled on Oikawa's clenched hand. "And did she give you a reward, in turn?" he asks, playing along.

Oikawa nods, cocking an eyebrow. "She did."

"Oh? What did she give you, then?"

Oikawa smirks in formulating the next part of his tall tale. "A kiss," he whispers, taking his hand right off his heart. Hajime flinches just in the slightest when he presses a finger to his lips like he's a spy, a sly double agent. "Right here," he whispers through them.

"Really, now?"

"Of course. Would I ever lie to you, Iwa-chan?"

Hajime just gives the setter the usual side eye, reaches up to flick Oikawa on the forehead, and waits for him to whine about it. Picking a volleyball off the ground, Hajime throws it right at him, tells him to focus on his tosses, ( _"They're really too low for me today, Sixkawa, so keep that in mind,"_ ) forgets any thoughts of other people _kissing_ Oikawa, and tells himself that no one would want those smarmy lips of his, anyway.

Still, Hajime can't help but watch the way Oikawa slides the plush of them under the sweat-laden collar of his shirt, all parted with an exhausted, but laughing sigh. Hajime can't help the way he bites at his own bottom lip in unwarranted reply.

 

**_x_ **

 

When the students of Aoba Jousai hear about Oikawa counting down to _six,_ he only gets more popular from the dwindling. He finds love letters on his desk every morning, professing love for such fleeting talent and poise, (' _oh_ , _my blue moon, my solar eclipse,')_ and Oikawa reads them all with a bit of a laugh, more subdued than usual. This is usually Hajime's cue to take them from him, chuck them into his backpack for later, and tell him there are other things to worry about.

 

**_x_ **

 

Oikawa is running out of lies to tell.

"Well, I'll be honest with you this time, Iwa-chan. I was microwaving a bowl of ramen for dinner, but while I left my meal unattended..." He turns over to Hanamaki, pressing an accusatory finger to his back. " _Makki_ came and poisoned my meal!"

"Please keep me out of this," Hanamaki drones, rolling his eyes. Hajime smacks Oikawa on the forehead for all the trouble and tells him to focus on his receives.

 

**_x_ **

 

"Why do you want to know so badly, Iwa-chan? Didn't I tell you not to pity me about stuff like this?"

Hajime wonders why he has to go through this everytime. Catching up to Oikawa on the asphalt, he tries reaching for the other boy's wrist but finds himself unable to get a grasp.

"Because we're friends, you idiot!" he calls out to him anyway.

Oikawa stops in this path and Hajime sees his shoulder lower, tidal wave settling into a reluctant peace.

"It's honestly so silly, Iwa-chan. And don't you always scold me for _silly_? Why would I set myself up for that, of all things?" Oikawa says pleasantly, turning over with a half-twirl.

"I won't scold you."

"And you won't flick me on the forehead, either?"

"I won't flick you on the forehead."

Hajime comes closer, feels the humidity rise in the air to the point where he can barely breathe, and sees Oikawa tense up, too. The setter opens his mouth to speak, brown of his eyes widening, wandering into something _wondrous_ , like a kindergartener with a crush, but he still can't say it. He's got nothing to say without his tall tales. He can't lie, when Hajime's got him down to a tee.

"Does it really matter, Iwa-chan?"

"Yes."

"Because you're scared that I'm at six now?"

"No.” It’s never that. “It’s because I worry about you.” It’s always _that_. “Don't make me say that twice,” Hajime adds on, for good measure.

Oikawa looks down on the ground for once. Lips purse and a hand covers the left side of his chest. "I just don't think I'm ready to say," he says, as forthright as he can. "Because I don't know what any of it means."

“I don’t get it.”

“You see, that’s my problem, too. _I don't get it._ I remember dying that day, and the reason is _so_ clear, _why_ I died, _how_ I died, but it’s _not_ at the same time. It feels too simple.”

“Maybe that’s what it is. Simple.” Hajime hardly goes wrong with _simple._

“It’s not. It’s weird and complicated.”

“You make a lot of things _weird_ and _complicated._ ”

“Iwa-chan, it’s just—it’s a lot.” He admits earnestly.

 _A lot._ He mouths this. _A lot._ Hajime backs down from Oikawa, feels the static race up the skin of his neck, tosses his head slightly back, and nearly forgets to exhale. He tries to hold himself in with everything he can muster, but no matter how many times either one of them die on each other, he knows it will never ache any less. Each time makes Hajime want to unwind in the worst way, limbs languid, head beating, all in sinking, sinking, sinking, but he’s no child hearing about lifetimes for the first time. He can’t cry, he can’t sink. Hajime knew his best friend with the _nine_ and _seven_ and now _six_ lives would keep winding down on the second hand. Oikawa’s clock falls backwards, and it’s only got half a rotation left until the end.

“What do you mean by that, Oikawa?” Hajime asks on, even if he’s afraid of the answer.

“It’s hard to say, because like I’ve said, I’m not sure. I’m still sorting it out.” Oikawa looks like he wants to take flight, pale and feathery, _pure jitters_ , on his feet. Because for all the bravado Oikawa is good at keeping, his facades and selection of well-crafted masks, he burns them for the sake of candor when he needs to. He peeks up at Hajime again and waits for him to scold him. As promised, Hajime will do no such thing.

“Well, if you still need time to say it, then I’ll back off.” Hajime says in compromise, backing away. “Sorry,” he adds, when Oikawa just takes two steps forward towards him to close off the distance.

Oikawa blinks up. He even sort of lightens, steps out of the wildfire unscathed. “Iwa-chan.”

“Don’t look at me like I’m your _keeper._ I get it now. You’ve got things to work out, and I won’t push you,” Hajime says, raising an index finger. “But don’t let it distract you from volleyball. And you better not die another time before you get a chance to tell me about this one first, all right?”

Oikawa nods in a hurry and follows after Hajime when he starts walking off. “Yeah. I won’t,” he says, ending his pacts with a smidge of laughter, leaning forward to peek at his best friend. This tugs at something in Hajime, innate, yet unexplained, from the tips of his fingers to hairs on the skin. It feels like an inferno from every corner.

“Good,” he manages to say anyway, despite his discomforts.

“And Iwa-chan, should I make you a promise?”

“Will you keep it, though? That’s the question.”

“Yes. I _promise_ to keep my _promise,_ ” Oikawa muses.

“All right, then. If you say so.”

At this, Oikawa pulls at Hajime’s hand, shakes it loosely, and forgets to let go. He takes a deep breath, huffing in like the big bad wolf, frowning just a bit, before smiling, lopsided and real, in exhale. Hajime pretends to find stoniness in all of Oikawa’s pact, finds that this is just Oikawa Tooru at some of his finest, sweet and certainly just scared from how his hands shake (scared of _what,_ Hajime does not know) and decides to save the reprimanding for later. Because he cannot deplore honesty. So Hajime holds on, smaller, stouter fingers wrapped around more lithe ones, finds nothing awkward about _two schoolboys_ essentially holding hands, and lets Oikawa prepare his fabled promise.

“If I don’t tell you by your birthday next year, I will then,” Oikawa promises Hajime, voice low like he’s making a chapel vow.

“Fine,” Hajime accepts, in equally hushed tones. “Though that sounds like such a shitty birthday gift.”

Oikawa is unfazed. Hajime tells himself to shut it. “Because even if it doesn’t really mean anything, even if it’ll be just another silly story about us by then,” Oikawa continues on, “It’s an important part of me, and I’ll want you to hear it, in words. It’s just a matter of forming them, the right way, to see where the next year goes.”

Hajime oddly thinks back to the family album, thinks that maybe Oikawa does have some poetry in his blood after all, and gives his hand another firm shake, a seal to keep going, to keep trying.

 

_about us_

_part of me_

 

“All right. By this time next year, then.” Hajime nods, still keeping the words in mind. Shortly after placing their promises like bets, they walk on together, hands unclasping at the seams but still impossibly close, pinkies almost touching. With no more mention of _six,_ or the loss of lives, Oikawa laughs on about something Matsukawa said at practice, about alien movies he still likes to watch on days off, and the literature homework he’s yet to finish because, _“Iwa-chan, you were so annoying about these questions, I couldn’t focus on anything like problem sets!”_

He throws his head up to the sky because he’s Oikawa, flighty, _frenzied_ Oikawa, and Hajime just watches him in contentment. He tells himself he can live with idea of six, if Oikawa can fill the time like this— _happy_. Just fine.

Really, _really_ just fine.

As bright as the boy he knows.

 

**_x_ **

 

_“Oikawa-kun, I think I like you a lot.”_

The year continues on with a handful of confessions, a pinky nail’s worth for Hajime and a two cupped palms for Oikawa. Hajime never accepts the girls that come to him, nor does he respond to the boys either, but Oikawa takes everything with a sort of breeziness that everyone’s come to expect. Frequently, Hajime hears of Oikawa’s failed first dates and completely _unromantic_ walks in the park, of now-knowing girls saying, “ _wow, there’s really nothing but volleyball in that boy’s brain,_ ” and all the times Oikawa has had his heart _utterly_ broken in the most _traumatic_ of breakups, all for him to just chuckle, throw his hands up in the air that same afternoon, and set the ball with little worry. At first, Hajime wondered if he was just hiding things, _his adolescent torment_ , but Oikawa has never said anything in secret to him, either. He carries on, date after date, girlfriend after girlfriend. To Hajime, it all feels relatively chaste, like he's not really stepping through new boundaries.

_“Tooru-kun, I think we should break up.”_

On Christmas Eve, through the dark-tinted windows of the VBC’s favorite karaoke joint, Hajime watches another girl end things in the falling snow, leave with something just short of sympathy, before just departing from him altogether. This year, Oikawa looks just the slightest bit mournful about it, but he nods it away, curt and reassuring something to himself. He uses actual words, shuts his eyes closed from what Hajime can see, and smacks his cheeks in a final gesture of _pep_. Hajime wants to laugh about these oddities, but he thinks he might spare Oikawa such a thing on the likes of Christmas, and settles for a faint line of a smile instead.

“ _Eh?_ Did another girl break up with Oikawa again? Pity, _pity,"_  Hanamaki quips while looking out the window too, completely deadpan. His voice amplifies through the microphone he’s holding, hereby announcing it to the entire team in the entire process. Hajime grabs the microphone away, reddening on Oikawa’s behalf, firmly entrenched in his delusion that this is just secondhand embarrassment.

Hajime finds that thin line of a smile running away into something he can't catch.

“I hear it’s because he can’t kiss for _shit_.” Matsukawa snickers.

“I hear he hasn’t even had his first kiss at all," Hanamaki chirps. “Sometimes, when the other guys ask him about it, he says, _‘I can’t! I can’t! I’m saving it for someone special.’_ ” His voice goes up an octave in mocking the setter.

Hajime can’t help but perk up at this. He’s never bothered to ask about kissing, because that’s just _gross_ and that means thinking about _Six_ kawa’s dumb, open lips and— _no._ Gross. Despicable. Never in a billion and five years.

“Surely, he must be joking.” Matsukawa shakes his head. “Remember the German supermodel?"

"That was obviously a lie."

"Whatever, he's probably kissed a hundred girls by now, hasn’t he, Iwaizumi-kun?” Both of the other first years turn to Hajime, eyebrows raised in sickening curiosity, but he won’t entertain the notion.

Pressing the mic to his mouth, Hajime says, in attempted teasing, _“and why would I keep track of the lips he’s kissed?”_

“Iwa-chan!”

_Oh no._

“You _pervert_!” He gasps next, like someone betrayed on a television soap. Hajime would be mortified, if Oikawa wasn’t half-covered in snow and still wearing his ridiculously oversized Santa hat to match. He marches over to Hajime on the couch, frowning and all sorts of _huffing,_ before dropping down next to him and leaning on his shoulder. Confused, Hajime just attempts to push him off, finds him heavier than an anchor collecting algae at the bottom of the sea, and lets him stay. The hat falls off at some point, to which Hanamaki picks up and places on Hajime’s head.

"Aw, cheer up," Matsukawa teases. "It's the holiday season."

"Whatever."

“Aren’t you going to scold me,” Hajime asks, “for speaking so _bluntly_ about that mouth of yours?”

Oikawa shakes his head. “I was going to, but I’m too tired.”

“Another girl end things with you?” Matsukawa cuts in next. “That’s a shame. I liked Umi-chan. I would’ve been drained from that, too.”

“Hey, you can see it as more time for practice.” Hanamaki muses like a song, and half-disgusted, Hajime isn’t sure he’s referring to volleyball or the merits of high school dating. Leaving Oikawa and Hajime alone, the two of them continue their efforts at karaoke, taking on a few upperclassmen in an _Arashi_ sing-off challenge. Oikawa remains on the other boy’s shoulder, almost like he’s hiding away from the loud bass of the speakers, but Hajime still doesn’t try to fight him off.

“Did this one hurt?” Hajime asks, looking away. “Like, _actually, actually_ hurt?”

Oikawa shakes his head. “No. They never do, honestly.”

“Then what are you so upset for?”

“I’m not.”

“But you are.”

Fuming in a strange sort of whine, Oikawa nuzzles in, makes a bed of goosebumps on Hajime’s neck, and refuses to admit defeat. “How did you know, Iwa-chan?”

“I assumed, when I saw you smacking yourself outside the window.”

“You really are a pervert, Iwa-chan. _Eavesdropping, nosey_ _voyeur_ —”

“Please don’t make this about me.” Hajime knows how hard it is to be serious, with a Santa hat on his head. Oikawa raises himself off Hajime’s shoulder, mouth agape like the latter’s said something wholeheartedly _offensive_ , all of which confuses the _hell_ out of Hajime altogether, and ends up merely simmering instead.

Oikawa plays with the _pom pom_ by Hajime’s ear, ducking away from meeting him in the eyes at all.

“After I broke up with Umi-chan—”

“Wait, _you_ broke up with her? That’s new.”

“How mean, Iwa-chan.”

“Sorry, that was. Go on.”

“Well, after I broke up with Umi-chan tonight, I had a realization.”

“Oh? Did a messenger angel come down to you?”

“Could’ve been, but,” Oikawa laughs nervously, before settling into seriousness, “I just had the idea that I should be spending Christmas Eve with someone I really like, you know?” he asks, finding it in himself to keep a more stable gaze on Hajime. At this point though, Hajime’s the one darting around, like they’re playing their usual games, but he amounts it to all the blatant excitement in the room.

“Of course.”

“And I just get kinda mad, because when you think about it, I don’t have that many Christmas Eves left. I just don’t, you know?” Oikawa kind of laughs at himself. “So this person has to be special to me. They can’t be just anyone.”

Hajime blushes, _refuses_ to admit that he’s doing such a thing again, thinks of Oikawa’s unintentional grasping of life’s great poetry again, of these simple affections like “special” and “can’t be just anyone,” and feels himself burn up despite his valiant, valiant efforts.

“Then, why don’t you go get that special person?”

“Because it’s scary.” Oikawa laughs, holding a knuckle over his mouth as if to mute himself. “And sometimes, you get a sense that there’s a certain time and place for things like that, and I just didn’t get there in time for Christmas Eve this year.”

“Well, here’s to next year, then," Hajime manages to say. “Maybe sooner than winter.”

Oikawa smiles from behind his hand. Hajime knows from how his face stretches around the parts he’s hiding.

"Why sooner than winter?"

Hajime shrugs. "No reason. Just felt like saying that."

“You know, you’re being surprisingly kind to me today, Iwa-chan.”

Hajime brushes up a bit of laughter. “It’s a holiday. Even I need a day off sometimes.”

“Oh? Well, maybe you should just give up your grouchiness altogether," Oikawa laughs. He drops on Hajime’s shoulder again just as the ballad ends. On the television screen where the lyrics are playing, there is a static-filled scene of a golden sunset, cheap and obviously in need of a modern-day facelift. Oddly, Hajime finds fondness it in anyway, because he really does consider himself a boy of summer through and through; he thinks a season and a half ahead, the oncoming tale of Oikawa’s fourth death and the start of his sixth and half-clock life, and reminds himself of some personal truth, one he’s devised wordlessly over the years. _You build yourself up in the summer, taking in life by the dirt and the storms ahead, reaching for the sun in solace. That way, winters won’t feel that cold, and the snow will melt through your pores like rainwater._

Hajime wonders if he should tell Oikawa this, that he’d best find someone in the summer. Winters and Christmas Eves are all well and good, but for the living and dying they’ve both done, it’s always been in that season. Hajime would never have it any other way.

But these are things he cannot tell Oikawa Tooru. He’ll leave it up to him and the person he picks.

“Yeah, and maybe you should get off me before I chop your head off," Hajime says instead.

Oikawa doesn’t dare move anyway. He says he likes the warmth.

“Merry Christmas, Iwa-chan.”

“Yeah, and same to you.”

Hajime prays for warmer days ahead.

 

**_x_ **

 

_I-WA-CHAN!_

_Just calling to say hello from Tokyo’s Sensoji Temple, where I have skittered off for New Years this year with my family, so don’t miss me too much, okay? I think you might, right? Hehe…well..._

_I’m just leaving this message to tell you I haven’t died or anything on the way here—in fact, the ride was pleasant and I’ve seen a lot of nice things already. I even took pictures, which I’ll be sure to send to you later. Or just come to my house tomorrow! We can watch New Year’s specials all day while my mom’s out, too. Just let me know what you wanna do, Iwa-chan!_

_Anyway, um. So yeah, my mother and sister have wandered off without me, so I thought it’d be nice to just give you a call. Too bad you never pick up during holiday times, huh? You’re probably hibernating by now…lazy Iwa-chan..._

_Ah, but I guess that’s fine, too. You’ve worked really hard lately, and you definitely deserve the rest, even if your serves could always use a little more work. Make sure to pile up those blankets! And tell me what you wished for at the shrine! Oh and—_

 

**_x_ **

 

_Sorry, Iwa-chan, my message cut out before I got a chance to finish! Am I doting on you too much? Are you going to yell at me later for this long message? Ah, it’s okay. It’s all okay...because, well, I guess it’s a cushion for the things I should be saying._

_About that fourth death, the start of my sixth life…_

_Well, that is...ah. Oh gosh, look at me getting all tongue-tied. I got off to a bad start. I didn't mean to sound like one of those boring documentary narrators..._

_Guess I’ll tell you some other time, Iwa-chan! Maybe it really is meant for June tenth, after all._

_Forget I ever sent you these!_

 

  
**_x_**

 

_Iwa-chan?_

_Sorry for this third message. I didn’t get cut off or anything, I just wanted to say this: happy new year, Iwa-chan._

_May we have many years ahead of us!_

 

**_x_ **

 

By the tail end of Hajime’s first year at Seijou, Miyagi records their shortest winter since 1969, stopping short on the tenth day of February in favor of an overeager spring. Tugging his blazer on and stuffing the last bit of breakfast he can into his mouth, he comes out onto the entrance with an extra lift in his soles and palms the fence posts on the way out, feeling lighter than he has in the past couple of months. Hajime takes in the smell of the new season, looks over at Oikawa’s house in passing, at the tree with the funny little lightning scar down the trunk, and offers a curt bow of the head for his best friend’s first death. He turns away not too long after that, thinking he probably doesn’t have to wait to walk with him today, because he usually walks with his new gymnast girlfriend on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays to their respective practices.

(What was her name again? _Yumi?_ Was it _Umi_ Again? _Natsuko?_ _Sachi?_ Hajime thinks he’s just grasping at straws at some point, so he stops trying to guess. He’s just the slightest bit bothered that he and Oikawa haven’t been talking much these days, mostly because Hajime has to study a little harder at night than he does, and the fact that Oikawa himself is the embodiment of a fly, landing everywhere—practice, dates, homework, team gatherings, training camps with his nephew, Takeru—but never staying somewhere for long. So he makes a mental note to _maybe_ pull him aside after practice today, or call him up later, _but not because he’ wants to catch up, or whatever,_ but because Spring’s got him more wound up and ready and raring to go for something he does not understand. Yes, that must be it. _Spring_. Good tidings ahead for sure. With this, Hajime takes a deep breath and parts himself from the Oikawa house, the rungs of his fence posts, and sings distractions to himself.)

He makes it halfway down the street when he feels the bend of an arm slink over the back of his neck, sly and just the slightest bit hesitant. Hajime smacks away the hand that tries to pat at his cheek first, tries to hold back the stupid sigh of relief in the back of his throat (why he’s sighing, and why it’s out of relief, he’ll never know) and drags Oikawa’s arm off of him.

“Iwa-chan, how rude," Oikawa calls after him. Hajime walks on with his setter on his heels.

“What?”

“You walked right past my house this morning without even stopping to get me!” he said. “I was even waving at the window! I had to skip breakfast so I could catch up with you.”

Hajime shrugs. He also simultaneously lets go. There’s no point in making a fuss about new girlfriends or the nuances of _knowing when to walk with him_ ; that’s one of the benefits of having a best friend, he thinks—because their lives might deviate at some point, whether it’s for a strange few weeks, or maybe years, if it’ll ever come to that, but he knows it’s never out of place when they pick back up where they left off again. It’s been like this with every new girlfriend, or a week of running different paths, every childish fight, every death and time in the void. Hajime wonders, suddenly, if spring results in silly thoughts like this, like he’s writing a memoir, aptly titled, _The Wonderful Life with Oikawa Tooru: A Friendship Told in Gaps of Thought, Space, and Time Apart._

(Definitely silly. He blames Oikawa and all of his extraterrestrial TV programming and field guides on alien spotting.)

“Iwa-chan?”

“Huh?”

“You’re were just spacing out on me," Oikawa pouts. “And just as I was saying really, _really_ kind things about you. I guess you’ll never get to hear them again.”

Red in the face, Hajime pretends not to care. He feels himself unable to say _‘fine by me,’_ though, words caught on a strange in-between of lightness and the unbearable weight in his chest; however, the alternative, _‘go on, tell me more,’_ doesn’t sit right with him, either. Hajime settles on nothing, wonders if that speaks volumes anyway, because it’s Oikawa Tooru of all people, and he might be able to read him all the same. He doesn’t say anything about it though, just walks on along the stretch of the usual road, and finds the brush of Hajime’s hand with his.

“Iwa-chan, do you want me to tell you what I said?”

“That’s unnecessary. Save that stuff for your girlfriend.”

“Who? I don’t have a girlfriend.”

“What? Did she break up with you?” They turn a corner. Hajime feels his breath hitch when their arms bump together next. Even if it lasted less than a second, he hates how much he’s taken notice of things like this.

“Why must you always assume that I’m being _broken_ _up_ with?” Oikawa asks.

Hajime regains composure and offers a smirk.  “Because you spend most of your time at volleyball practice, copy too much of their homework, still call your best friend _Iwa-chan,_ eat the last popsicle in the freezer even when I say, _explicitly,_ not to go there, but you do it anyway—”

“Iwa-chan!”

“Sorry. When you broke up with _her_ , then."

“Well, no, Ayako-chan broke up with me, actually, but it was all very amicable! She even said she’d still come to my matches, though I think she did mention something about rooting for the other team…”

“So she did break up with you.” Hajime rolls his eyes. They both stop at the street corner and watch the tense way the red light blinks into something green overhead on the wire. The cars go by, a slow crawl for the likes of the clear streets ahead, but Hajime doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with spending more time with Oikawa on the corner.

“That’s not the point!” Oikawa chirps.

“Okay, so what’s the point?”

“I had nice things to say about you, Iwa-chan. _Yikes,_ you really are bad at all this sentimental stuff. I bet it goes right over that prickly head of yours! Sometimes you make me _soooo_ mad, Iwa-chan, I can hardly believe it—”

“Then tell me,” Hajime perks up, in all seriousness, “what you wanted to say.”

Oikawa shakes his head, petulant as petulant can get. “No way.”

“All right then,” Hajime almost stammers, “I’d rather not waste any more time away from practice, so we should just hurry to school and forget it. Just forget it—”

“I said, _I missed taking these walks with you._ ” Oikawa blurts out, cooler than cooler in a completely uncomposed way, face half-frowning, half-smiling, eyes darting down at the pavement.

Hajime sighs, recognizes that fluttering at the pit of his stomach again, and tugs on the strap of Oikawa’s messenger bag, pulling him forward to cross the street with him. He keeps the leather in his scrunched palm, finds the strange urge to hold on, and does. Oikawa just stumbles behind him, quiet the entire way, and Hajime begins to wonder if spring's got him shut up like it does with him. He sings those songs to himself again, bites down on that bottom lip, and thanks the changing seasons for all of the lightness in the air. Without it, he certainly wouldn't have been able to breathe by now.

( _Spring_ , he thinks. Good tidings ahead, for sure.)

 

**_x_ **

 

"Hey, Iwa-chan?" His steps are heavy and tired and dragging from another day of practice, but Oikawa's voice lifts Hajime from the fringes.

"Yeah?"

"Ah...well. No, it's nothing."

"Not this time?"

"Not this time."

 

**_x_ **

 

It is nearing the end of April, on a clear day brisker than usual, when Oikawa comes into Hajime's life right at the start of waking. It's a strange thing, being aware of it, because Hajime's sure it's happened before more often than not, but he knows this time is different because he hasn't let the thought of him completely flit away. In all of his years waking up and thinking of Oikawa, Hajime has usually categorized his wafting memories into two things: ones to toss away immediately, like daily reminders or his whiny quips, and ones to press into the recesses, like a recent death, or an argument, only to unbury in the rarest of moments.

_"Iwa-chan."_

Staring up at the ceiling in recollecting, Hajime remembers seeing Oikawa under a blue sky, just the view of his streaming hair, the light sweat of his forehead, the tops of the house roofs in their neighborhood. He hasn't said anything other than his name, but Hajime doesn't have anything to add, either. It feels like watching a movie, a cinematic cut away from those lips of his, away from the things left unsaid. From behind a dreaming lens, Hajime feels like breaking the fourth wall, like he should be telling him himself.

_"Iwa-chan."_

Hajime closes his eyes, lifts the memory up to measure it in terms of the mundane, the meaningful, and decides that it can be both. He presses that panorama of Oikawa to the forefront, something he never does, and throws off his covers to start the day. He clicks his tongue—' _tch!'—_ and scolds himself for not realizing sooner.

Hajime takes his morning run, laughs when he realizes how light his steps feel, and speeds up on the road, towards the sunrise.

_"Iwa-chan?"_

How simple things can be, even when it comes to the likes of Oikawa Tooru. _Oikawa Tooru,_ who smiles bright and smacks himself in the snow, who demands a shoulder to lie on and extra milk pops in the freezer. _Antsy, frantic,_ _high-flying_ Oikawa Tooru, who’s taught Hajime the finer points of a well-placed _frown_ , but smiles for moments like this, too _. ‘Oikawa Tooru,’_ Hajime thinks with that said smile, _‘someone ensconced and sometimes insincere.’ Oikawa Tooru_ , who’s just a boy either way, not a god, or something golden, _just a silly, hardworking boy,_ and Hajime's not sure when this all came to pass.

Maybe it’s because he knows Oikawa is more than something gilded. When Hajime thinks of those seventy-two kilograms of wonder and weight, his one-hundred and eighty-four centimeters, arms outstretched, he knows his best friend's still learning to tower. Oikawa Tooru. That name of his races through his head like it’s making a rallying tour, a victory tour, honestly, because there’s no doubt about it by now—Hajime wants Oikawa, likes him even, but it’s not because he’s made of myth. Oikawa’s first death might have come from lightning, but Hajime doesn’t seek such flash.

Because for all the love Oikawa gets as Miyagi's golden boy, Hajime will love everything under the luster.

This is something Hajime comes to piece together, finally, on the bus home together, leaving from another lost practice match to Ushiwaka. For all his talk of electricity and never resting, Oikawa sleeps soundly, head turned in a way that looks like he's placing drowsy kisses on Hajime's shoulder, unmoving like he's gone from six lives to five in a matter of matches. Hajime leans over, hears the solemn rise and fall of breath in proof he’s still alive, and lets himself settle into something weary for once, too. He relishes in the peace of it, folds his bandaged fingers together, but finds that he's too restless to enjoy it. With this, he cranes to see Oikawa again, like the boy might bring him some small harmony this time, but he is only left with the usual discord, the usual caving down on his chest.

With a sigh, Hajime has the feeling that this is what it’s like to be hit by lightning. Maybe he’s dying and doesn’t know it. He presses himself against the window, pretends he hasn't been electrocuted, and resists the urge to smile the whole way home, because, _'God, Hajime,_ _it’s just Oikawa_.'

He thinks about how he’d never get on with him, not in a billion and five years, and wonders about closing that distance anyway. For the skies they've shared, the summers kept in the palms of their reddened hands, Hajime doesn't like the idea of such time apart.

So he sighs, curt and relenting. This, of all things, wakes Oikawa up on his shoulder. He shows his first real smile of the day to Hajime, weakened by sleep and defeat, and shuts his eyes closed again. The smile drifts off his face, but never completely.

Hajime just decides that maybe he'll try to rest, too. In a hazy dream, he flies by those billion and five years, further and further into outer space, until he just conquers time altogether.

 

**_x_ **

 

Hajime collapses on the Seijou court a week later, barely conscious, after making the effort of hitting one more spike from Oikawa's high toss. It clears the blockers across the net, and Hajime smiles on the way down when he knows he's connected in the way he's wanted to all afternoon. He falls under to the sound of Oikawa calling his name, like a frenetic sort of lullaby, and tells himself he'll strike it down again next time. He'll be sure to carry Seijou to new heights, only to rise and rise and _rise_ without end.

 

**_x_ **

 

It is May and their second year at Seijou by the time Hajime dies for the fourth time. It is by the flu again, one that he thinks he should be able to fight off by now ( _‘what kind of teenager dies from the flu, of all things?’_ asked Matsukawa, in one of his visits to Hajime’s bedroom one day) but he thinks it’s much more peaceful than drowning, or getting hit by a speeding car. He relishes the time alone to catch up on his homework, the time to rest his feet from drills and constant jumping, the much-needed sleep, but he must admit, when it comes down to it, that he hates staying in bed at times like this. _Tournaments are abound_ , he thinks, and lying bedridden won’t do anything to further the team. He looks down at his palms, notices how shriveled they look in sickness, and wonders if he could just fall asleep and get on with it.

He squeezes his hands shut, pretends the resulting redness is from spiking too many of Oikawa’s tosses, and prays for something swift this time around.

Under a thin veneer of some summer sky he can’t wait to get to, Oikawa stretches his hand out to hold.

_“Hey, you worked hard today, didn’t you, Iwa-chan?”_

 

**_  
x_ **

 

_“Let me see him!”_

_“Tooru-kun, please.”_

_“Iwa-chan! I need to see Iwa-chan!”_

_“He’s very, very ill. We don’t want to get you sick, too.”_

_“I don’t care about that! I didn’t get to visit once! Why doesn't he let me see him?”_

_“It’s fine, Tooru-kun. It’s better that way. And besides, he’ll come back. You know he will.”_

_“What does that matter? He could come back a million different ways, but I’m still losing him every time, aren’t I?”_

 

**_x_ **

 

On the day of Hajime’s reappearance, it is his birthday, June tenth, and he and Oikawa are headed towards an argument under the high-hanging birdhouse. Hajime barely has time to loosen his tie when Oikawa starts going on about how much better the team has gotten without him, _‘oh, you just had to see it, Iwa-chan, the first years are so tall and strong this year, you know,’_ eyes peeking up at the sky and back at the dearly departed in _taunting_ , his falsities, because that’s what Oikawa does, when he doesn’t know how to say things he means. Hajime, fresh out of the void and still aching from the trip back, flicks him right on the forehead, a signal for him to _cut the bullshit,_ and says no more. Oikawa, mortified, just frowns like he’s been terribly hurt and goes redder than Hajime’s ever seen in his life.

Hajime holds a finger up in the air. “No more of your stories. You always tell them when you can’t get to the fucking point about something. So, unless you’re going to tell me what’s on your mind, I don’t want to hear it.”

Oikawa doesn’t say anything, frankly too taken aback to muster the words, it seems. Hajime remains close, hand still precariously placed above Oikawa’s head, and is almost certain he can feel the tide of breath on him, in and out, in and out, more frantic by each phase.

“You’re mad at me,” Hajime says. “You only get like this when you’re mad.”

“I’m not.”

“But you are.” Hajime holds his ground. “About what?”

Oikawa takes a turn in flicking Hajime on the forehead himself, to which the latter steps back a little. Oikawa, in turn, advances by millimeters.

"Oikawa."

"It has nothing to do with you, Iwa-chan."

" _Oikawa._ We both know that's untrue. Stop taking the winding road."

A beat of silence prys them both apart for a moment, but it feels like years on Hajime. "You died on May third, one month and seven days ago,” Oikawa finally starts, taking the winding road again anyway.

“Okay.”

"But you were sick for a week and a half before that. I remember the time, because I helped you to the infirmary the day you first collapsed," Oikawa says, eyes getting hazy in remembering, and Hajime is almost tempted to reach right up to wipe the fear away. But it's not like Oikawa's going to cry about it, he shouldn't honestly, because Hajime's right here, reborn in his black suit and tie with twenty-one lives left to go. Perfectly fine, as Hajime usually is.

And yet, here Oikawa is, right on the verge. At least he's holding himself up well.

"And then, when you took leave to stay home from school, I bet you knew you were dying," Oikawa pieces together.

Hajime nods. "The Iwaizumi family weakness—influenza. I knew it was coming."

"Then why didn't you let me visit once?"

"Wait." Hajime perks up. "What?"

"You told your mother not to let me visit."

"Are you kidding me? Of course I wouldn't let you, you idiot." Hajime comes closer. "You think I'd want you to waste a life on the flu?"

"Well, you didn't do that to me the first time you died from it—"

"You didn't have six lives back then!" Hajime yells. Still wobbly from his time in the void, he sits down under the hanging birdhouse, accidentally hits it on the way down, and mashes a hand to his face, breathing out all of his frustrations. His frustrations over his readjustments to the world, over his unfinished dreams in the void, and how just how much he likes Oikawa between it all, _despite_ it all. He breathes back his own urges to break down too, tells himself he's still sensitive from the other side, and kicks off his too-tight shoes in the whirlwind of his thoughts, Oikawa's penchant for trouble like this.

_Trouble follows trouble._

"So that's what it is, then? _Pity_? Is that what it comes down to?" Oikawa asks. "Because in all my years together with you, _Hajime_ , it's never been that, but now—"

"When will I get this through to you? When can I stop explaining that this is not a matter of pity?" Hajime says, feeling the burning sensation rise up in his nose, the backs of his ears. _Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry._ "I have never once pitied you, Oikawa. I wouldn't fucking dream of it. You're going to do great things, whether you've got seven hundred lives or six. Why do you think I'm pitying you? I'm pushing you on, at least I'm trying to, from the things that get in the way."

At this, Oikawa freezes, because for all the times he's had trouble being honest about things, Hajime isn't exactly the right kind of songbird all the time, either. But when he is right, he is a cardinal, red and raring for the likes of Miyagi, but swooping down low with the words Oikawa needs to hear.

Not _wants_ , because Hajime will never sugarcoat things. Needs.

"You have a nephew to teach that jump serve to. We have to beat Ushiwaka and win nationals. You're going to get another _best setter's award,_ because no one can top what you do. You have a team to lead, because that's what you're going to do one day. _Lead it._ Oikawa—you're not the only thinking about what's going to happen with your next six lives. And I'm not going to pretend that I know what's going to happen next with them—but you've got everything ahead of you. _Everything_. That's why I didn't let you visit me."

Oikawa looks like he's about to burst, but holds it in with staggered breath and crumbles with a little kid's smile.

"Hey come on, I didn't even headbutt you this time."

"How did you get this cool, Iwa-chan?"

"I've always been cooler than you." Hajime gets up from the rotting wood of the porch, stands, and feels much taller than Oikawa for once. He wrings a hand around the back of his head, brings him in on the shoulder Oikawa would've targeted anyway, and keeps him there. Hajime stares back up at the birdhouse, wonders if the ghosts of all his family ancestors would find this display ridiculous, and forges on anyway. In fact he just pulls Oikawa closer, pressed into him like something he'll never have to let go of, no matter where they end up going.

Hajime sighs, deep and shaky. _Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry._

"Iwa-chan," Oikawa calls like a child. Hajime wants to laugh, almost. "Iwa-chan, I don't want you dying either."

Hajime nods. "I know. I'll take better care of myself in the future. But at least I've got twenty-one left—"

"But that's the thing," Oikawa continues. "I don't want you losing any lives at all. You're always looking at the six I've got left, but don't you think I notice your _twenty-one?_ " Hajime almost lets his words fall into something unheard, because he can't help but notice the way Oikawa's voice almost falls in tremors but ultimately finds its footing, like he's trying to be strong, too. Like he already is and Hajime's underestimated it. Hajime presses a sigh into Oikawa too, not knowing what to say, so he doesn't dare.

"Iwa-chan, do you know what day it is?"

Hajime shakes his head.

"It's your birthday, Iwa-chan."

"Is that so?" He finds the will to choke out, raising himself for a laugh. "Good timing."

"And I promised you something on your birthday, didn't I?"

Hajime nods. "I didn't think you'd keep that promise."

"Well, I'm about to, if you'll hear my story."

"About your fourth death."

" _About my fourth death,"_  Oikawa repeats with a laugh, but it comes in tandems of sniffling, a quiet cry that doesn't want to be heard. Hajime's glad the sound of it is prettier than the faces Oikawa's probably making at the moment, pressed against his suit, but he can't help but think that he doesn't want him crying at all.

"Go on," Hajime says.

"Well, you know how you died on my birthday last year?" Oikawa asks. Hajime nods against him. "Well, I died on that day, too," he asserts, tone wafting into something a little lower.

Hajime separates himself from Oikawa. "You did?" he asks, almost forgetting to breathe. Oikawa nods, tries to wipe the wetness in his eyes, and forges on with a cleared throat.

“Well, I had my party, and everyone came over, you know...from my class, Matsun, Makki, everyone else from the team, but time passed and you never came,” Oikawa muses. “And I thought to myself, _‘Oh! Iwa-chan has never missed any of my birthday parties! I hope nothing bad’s happened!’_ ”

“And?”

“Well, I was running, I think. Not sure why I was running. Maybe I just really wanted to see you at that moment? Ah, but why would I want that so badly, though? I mean, because you did owe me a birthday present, right? Maybe I was excited about getting it... _ah_ yes, that must be it. Of course.” Oikawa crosses his arms at his chest, as if to support himself from falling down altogether. “And then, by that time, I wasn’t looking where I was going, so I ended up slipping down a high flight of stairs. I don't remember anything after that."

Hajime shakes his head, feeling pins jab at the back of his neck, phantoms yanking at the hair on his skin. "Oikawa." He presses his chin down to his neck. "You can't tell me you died looking for me."

Oikawa shrugs through reluctant tears. He goes quiet for a second, stewing in his own thoughts.

"I guess I want to look after your lives too, Iwa-chan."

Hajime smiles at that, coughs up a song of his own, and wipes it away. Behind him, the high-hanging birdhouse jangles in the soft breeze. His ancestors must be laughing at the both of them for sure, now.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." Oikawa laughs again.

At this, Hajime wonders why it had taken Oikawa so long to tell him about falling down some stairs, after almost a whole year of dodging or never quite getting to the point, but he realizes he hasn't been exactly forthright, either. Both of them had been running up until this moment. Hajime imagines Oikawa, tearing through the downpour in the realizations he did not mean to make, much in the same way Hajime had come crawling to his own feelings. So Hajime doesn't dare to ask, _"what took you so long?"_ because like thunder following the small flash of lightning, he realizes that making the perfect storm takes time.

So with this, on June tenth, Iwaizumi Hajime's seventeenth birthday, a perfect storm is what they make. Under the high-hanging birdhouse, Hajime presses Oikawa to his shoulder again, feels the sky open above them in another year's rainy season, and whispers low in his ear, " _I like you, Oikawa,"_ for only him to hear.

Oikawa smiles like he's never smiled before, bites down on his bottom lip, and whispers something else right back.

_"Can I kiss you, Iwa-chan?"_

And when they do, Hajime thinks back to holding hands under wrapped blankets and on the way back home, seeks out the warmth of Oikawa's palm again, and keeps it for good this time.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, everyone! This is my first attempt at writing iwaoi, and I originally thought this fic could maybe hit the 20k mark and stop...but I still have other parts to cover and I just don't have time to write it all in one go u_u I hope this is all right, haha...
> 
> ANYWAY, I guess I'll save any real comments for the end of this four-parter! All questions can be directed at @levkens on twitter or companions.tumblr.com!


	3. if i could move mountains for you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Recommended listening: "We Belong" feat. Katie Herzig by RAC and "Don't Lie" by Vampire Weekend

_Dear obaachan and ojiichan,_  

 _It’s your grandson, Tooru! I bet you didn’t think you’d get mail from me_ _♥ To be honest, I’m not sure this letter will ever really reach you, but I’m willing to try because my sister says I should always respect my elders...so, how am I doing so far? Are you glad to be getting a letter from me? I certainly hope so~_

_Anyway, how is everyone doing up there? Is Hideo-chan running for president? (Does heaven even have presidents?) Is Katamori-chan still a warlord, even though heaven doesn’t allow katana swords? And actually—just the other day, ojiichan, I was thinking about the vegetable gardens you used to keep in your house in Sendai, and I was wondering if you were still growing radishes up there. I wonder if obaachan is still writing poetry. You sure had a way with words...shame I never get around to reading much—I’m on my high school’s volleyball team, you know, so I’ve been working hard! (Hopefully I make captain by my third year, too, heh heh…)_

_But yeah. I guess that’s all you need to know about me for now. I’m just trying a bunch of new things and sticking with the stuff I want to pursue. It’s kind of hard, when you’ve got so little lives. I mean, can you believe I’m already down to six? It’s absolutely pedestrian, unfair, but your grandson has been making great strides, so don’t worry too much about me. Whether I live another fifty years or ten or three, I’ll be sure to go out on top. (Put in a good word for me with the gods, why don’t you?)_

_Well, I guess I shouldn’t talk on for too much longer. Harukou is coming up and I should put more time into practice. I just have one more question, one that I’ll never get an answer to because you’re all the way up there, and I’m still here, running around in this topsy turvy world._

_Obaachan, ojiichan...what’s heaven like?_

_You think they’d like someone like me?_

_Ah...maybe I’m just thinking too hard. Your grandson tends to do that a lot. Anyway, talk to you soon!_

_-Tooru_

 

_**x** _

 

Whenever Oikawa reappears, it is in an open field in the park, mostly unadorned save for the rise of thistles, waning wildflowers, and the fine overcoat of an autumn’s blue sky. On a particular Sunday in September, Hajime trudges through that field with him, eats up the chill of the air, and watches the latter shiver under the wrapped bundle of his scarf and his too-thin jacket. At his setter’s tremblings, Hajime takes Oikawa's hand and presses it into the wool of his own pocket, ignores the fluttering still living in his chest, and continues to walk through the weeds without a word. He hears the sound of a train’s call in the distance, sounding like a howl before he can even make his next step, and peeks over at Oikawa.

Hajime briefly remembers Oikawa once telling him that this was the best spot in the prefecture to hear the trains depart, that the sound is crisper here than none other, but Oikawa does not repeat the sentiment this time. He merely peeks up from the ground, closes his eyes for a moment, and mouths numbers on his tongue. _One, two, three._ He draws another small breath. _Four, five, six—_ the train sounds again on that count, further away this time, and Hajime feels something sore leap up against his chest.

"Oikawa."

"Hm?" Oikawa hums.

“You once told me,” Hajime starts, stopping and stamping down on a bald patch of dirt,  “that this was the best place to hear the trains leave. You’ve always said that, but if the tracks are side by side, one departing, one coming back into town, wouldn’t you hear them both? It goes both ways, doesn’t it? It’s not just leaving. 

"I don't know much about that," Oikawa says, pleasantly obstinate. He looks ahead, nudges Hajime along towards the hunk of the bright red mailbox up the clearing, and walks towards it. “But it seems you’ve put a lot of thought into this.” 

Hajime just shrugs and says, “just thought it was your funny way of wording things."

“No, but I guess it's all in my subconscious or something,” Oikawa says rather absently with a shake of his head, unlatching himself from Hajime’s hand and speeding up his pace to see the mailbox. “Oh, but look, Iwa-chan! I thought my sister was lying, but I guess she really did repaint the mailbox! I wonder if she brought Takeru to help, too. 

“How’s he doing, by the way?” Hajime asks, going along with the sway of changed subjects this time.

“Good,” Oikawa answers with a nod. “He’s a little better off for someone in the family because his paternal grandfather’s a _powerhouse_. Left him like twenty lives in his will, so the kid is _set,_ ” he says with a vague annoyance, almost like he’s resisting the urge to click his tongue, “and he hasn’t even had his first death yet!” 

Hajime finds relief in this. “Well, that’s fortunate, isn’t it?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Oikawa relents with a sigh and a bit of a grin. It is mostly sincere. “He’s a handful, but at least he’ll have the lives for it.”

Hajime smiles faintly, takes note of the lacquered metal box, wide-bodied and able to accommodate up to maybe four families’ worth of mail, and trudges up to Oikawa’s side to press his palm to the top, too. Sneaking a glance at Oikawa, Hajime finds fondness in his eyes, wonders how Oikawa can find anything like whimsy in his place of reappearance, and realizes it's barely fond at all. Without reaching for Oikawa's hand himself, Hajime feels his fingers intertwine with the setter's and creep right back into his pocket in hiding.

"When she comes back, I'm going to scold her about her shoddy painting job. She got red all over the metal accents!" Oikawa traces an index finger over the gold-plated handle and swipes at it like he's got dust to brush off.

"I would take it easy on her," Hajime tells him. "These trips back are never fun to take."

Oikawa shrugs, squeezes Hajime's hand harder in his pocket, and stares ahead. His smile falters after a while, at which Hajime just heaves a sigh to start off their silence. For a day so bright and pleasantly clear, he must remember that they are here in half-mourning.

"My family has a habit of living their _last_ like hermits," Oikawa muses, "and I'm already getting mad at the thought of my sister doing the same."

Hajime starts fiddling with the tiny compartment doors, leaning over to peek at the mailless sockets. "I don't know," he says to Oikawa, "because I guess I'd like my last to stretch on, too...even if it means staying inside more."

"Well, when I reach my last, whenever that might be, I think I'll take more vacations. Play volleyball on the sands of Aruba, climb the French Alps," he hums dreamily, like it's his life's greatest mission, but every look on his face says, by the smallest gestures, _"I think I'd rather stay inside, too."_ Hajime knows this by the way Oikawa's eyes flutter too rapidly, and how his nose wrinkles when he speaks. He has too many tells by now, and Hajime has studied each one for ages.

Oikawa falls back away from the mailbox. He lets his hand unlatch from Hajime's again and folds them in front of him.

"How about we worry about that stuff later?" Hajime suggests, just to get the nerves off Oikawa's back, because he knows they're forming and he knows how hard they can be to shake off. "I don't want your mother to call us a bad welcoming party. It's prime time to make a good impression," he jokes. 

"Silly Iwa-chan," Oikawa laughs halfheartedly. "She already loves you like another son." He makes a face about this. "It's _gross_ ," he adds, choosing to err on the side of non-sentimental, "but she does."

"I know, but sometimes her _other_ one gets his head caught in the clouds," Hajime quips with judging eyes, "and it's my job to make sure he's in the clear."

Oikawa just smiles, tucks his chin downward, and lets Hajime take his hand again. They fall into something silent, hearing another train's howl ring through the mid morning stillness, and Hajime almost wants to ask if it's coming back or leaving. 

"Well, I think it's almost about time," Oikawa says. "You think my sister's going to be grouchy from the other side?"

"Not as cranky as you get."

"I do _not_ get cranky."

"Sure you don't," Hajime says with a roll of his eyes. "And where's Takeru? Your brother-in-law? Are they still getting her party ready back at the house?"

Oikawa looks over his shoulder, nods, and sighs about it. "It was all Takeru's idea, and it's giving my brother-in-law the biggest headache, because he's so dead set on balloons and the _perfect_ cake, even though there should be no reason to have one in the first place."

"I guess it's nice that she'll have something to come back to," Hajime says in return. "You can't go wrong with that." At the suggestion, he peers up at Oikawa, who just does the same right back, and they get caught up in the things they'd like to say; Oikawa's probably coming up with further diversions, the silly and mundane, to fill the conversation with, and Hajime wants to tell him to avoid just that. This results in nothing but dead air, stifling to no end, but Hajime is used to this ruminating.

"Iwa-chan," Oikawa calls out, sudden, soft. He can't look Hajime in the eye.

"Yeah?" Hajime edges out.

"Will you throw me a party, too? When I get down to the last?" Oikawa asks. "A big one? Cinderella style?"

Hajime looks up, hears nothing but the sharp way the single word hits his ears, _last,_ like a train leaving Miyagi on a clear afternoon, and knows to duck under the veils Oikawa raises up. He knows what paces beyond the pretty talk.

"Yeah," Hajime answers, "and I'll get you the goddamned moon to go with it."

 

**_x_ **

 

By mid September, the World Health Organization declares a global crisis aptly named “ _apocalypse by aneurysm.”_ Hajime first hears of the term one evening when he’s getting ramen with the team, on a dusty TV in the restaurant corner, and he thinks he might never forget the room’s resulting silence upon hearing the news. Two weeks after a prominent local politician succumbed to one on national broadcast, scores and scores of people around Japan had met their downfalls the same way, and it was only a matter of time until things were made official. This was the case with last year’s _“death, by natural disaster” (_ also known as Miyagi’s extended rainy season, the mildest of instances) and various other pestilences before Hajime’s lifetime. He stirs uncomfortably in his seat, picks at the noodles in his soup until he lets them drown from sogginess, and meets Oikawa’s glances from across the table. He’s just gotten to snapping his chopsticks down the middle, food still untouched, but he’s so distracted that one of them ends up breaking into a sharp dagger.

Hanamaki sighs, putting down his bowl. “ _Great_. I’ve always wanted to be a walking timebomb.”

“Don’t put it like that,” Hajime barks back. “It’s a one-in-a-thousand chance. That’s not that high.”

“I hate to break it to you, Iwaizumi, but that’s _incredibly_ high," Matsukawa refutes, pointing the blunt end of his chopstick at him, "but it should be fine. I might die from it a couple of times this season, but as long as I stay above twenty-five lives, it shouldn’t be a big deal, you know?” He shrugs like he’s talking about catching mono, or warding off summer mosquitoes. Hajime squirms in his seat over this levity.

Oikawa puts his chopsticks down altogether. Under the table, he looks for Hajime’s hand and holds on, but above the surface he just smiles pleasantly, offers reassurances in the form of a few shrugs, and calls the waiter over to turn the television off altogether. Glances are exchanged across the table but Oikawa doesn’t relent, opting to talk about the upcoming _Harukou_ preliminaries instead, but Hajime can’t help but flinch when the setter squeezes his fingers harder on his lap.

“Say, Oikawa,” Hanamaki starts, “wouldn’t you be freaked out the most by this? What are you at again, like six?”

Nodding, Oikawa sighs. It is a forced sound and nothing but filtered air, prettied up with a small tweet to hide any sort of panic.

“Well, it’s definitely not something to take lightly, but I have to agree with Iwa-chan. _One in a thousand_ —that’s nine-hundred and ninety-nine people before me. I think I’ll be okay.” Oikawa starts slurping at his noodles after that, letting go of Hajime’s hand in the process, but the latter can’t help but stare over at Oikawa with trepidation; he watches the slight way Oikawa’s hand still shakes on the table, just ever so slightly, knows for sure that the _apocalypse by aneurysm_ isn’t some far-off matter, and resigns himself to be an optimist anyway. _Just one in a thousand. Certainly not an apocalypse._ Hajime takes a deep breath; he will continue to be an optimist, for better or worse, and he doesn’t see a point in changing that, even with _six_ on the line, because Oikawa Tooru isn’t going to die this time. He just _can’t_ , because they’re together now and the gods couldn’t do that to him, _they_ _wouldn’t dare to be that cruel—_

“Yeah,” so Hajime swallows, queasily, staring ahead. “Just one in a thousand.” He feels Oikawa turn a gaze on him, but he doesn't answer to it. The rest of the meal is had in silence, minds whirring over things potentially lost. Oikawa raises the veils once more, smile hung loosely over a barely-touched bowl of ramen with garnished pork, but Hajime sees past his translucence again without issue.

At the other end of the restaurant, a waiter collapses with a full tray of bowls. A woman trips over the open doorstep without getting back up.

 _'Just one in a thousand,'_ Hajime thinks again.

"Just one in a thousand," Oikawa singsongs.

Under the table, Hajime is the one to take Oikawa's hand this time, fingers intertwined in a clash of hopeful warmth and the cold brush of skin.

 

**_x_ **

 

“There we go.”

On their way home from the ramen shop, Oikawa trudges past the red mailbox, puts a sealed letter inside the first slot on the upper right hand corner, and shuts it closed for the heavens to receive. 

"Does that ever work?" Hajime asks on their way out, back to Oikawa's house for the evening for homework, _The Autumn Alien Tikachu Extravaganza,_ and the usual sleepover. Oikawa shrugs in return, stretches his hands up to a field of stars above, and yawns like he's just mailed out his yearly taxes. 

"Not sure," Oikawa groans out, "because it's my first time trying it. I just kinda figured it would be nice to reach out to my grandparents for once, you know? _Respect for the elders_ and all that." 

Hajime nods. "I can get that, I guess.”

Oikawa nods. "I asked my grandfather if he was still growing radishes and if granny was still writing poetry in her notebooks." He laughs about this. "You think they have notebooks in heaven, Iwa-chan? You know, the gridded ones I like? They’re _oh so_ nice for planning formations, you know..."

(Hajime glances up. Veiled language worn thin. He knows it is Oikawa's way of saying, _'what do you think heaven's like, Iwa-chan? Am I cut out for places like that?'_ —something that Hajime can't answer. It is something he'd prefer _not_ to answer for the next twenty-one lifetimes.)

"Well, I imagine you'd get everything you want in a place like that," Hajime says instead, though he's never really thought about things like the afterlife, or a permanent one, at least. He'd really prefer not to. The void was one thing—Hajime likens it to swimming on his back in nothingness, face never submerged completely because there's still a world to look back to, but he has no idea what to say about the afterlife. To him, it still feels so far away, _twenty-one whole lives away,_ like reaching towards the other end of the galaxy. Hajime imagines it must be different for people like Oikawa though, but knows that sympathy will only get them so far. Often, he thinks having too much sympathy is just a sweet way to wallow.

So Hajime just walks a little faster, back to Oikawa's empty house, the homework that awaits, the television to be watched, the bed to be shared. A world of their own, in other words. Because even if they don't have everything, even if keeping a heaven on earth will be more impossible than not, he knows he has to show Oikawa the best of what they've got anyway. Because their best, even _their worst_ is worth more than every afterlife. It is here where they have _together_.

"You know what's something heaven doesn't have?" Hajime asks when Oikawa catches up to him on the grass.

"What?" 

Hajime smiles, lopsided and unsure, but true.

"Milk bread," he says, "and _Alien Tikachu Autumn Specials_."

Oikawa laughs. "You said they had everything, though."

"It won't be the same _everything_ you're used to," Hajime quips back. "Nothing beats what you've got here."

"Oh?" Oikawa paces up a little more until he's walking side by side with Hajime on the lawn, feet synching into the same _left, right, left, right_ motion. "Tell me more," Oikawa continues, flirtier than ever.

"You won't have ramen shops like the ones in Miyagi, and the plaques they'll give you for _best setter_ won't feel good in your hands at all, because they'll probably hand them out like candy," Hajime continues. "There will be no challenge in the matches you play, because the angels will lose to you on purpose."

"Are you saying I'm even more angelic than angels, Iwa-chan?"

"Let's not get carried away, now, _Six_ kawa."

"Maybe immaculate is the word for it," Oikawa coos. Hajime just nudges him with an elbow and rolls his eyes, stomping up further on the grass. 

"Iwa-chan!" Oikawa calls out, laughing again, "stop running so fast!" 

"I'm not even running!" Hajime yells back, though he knows he's picking up his feet. Maybe that way, Oikawa will follow after him. Maybe that way, he will get to show Oikawa the world they're still apart of, because it is imperfect in the most immaculate shades.

 

**_x_ **

 

“You know, when you lean over the back of my neck like that, it’s not hard to figure out what you want,” Hajime tells Oikawa over the near-muted blare of the television screen. “You’re not cute,” he adds, just as Tikachu appears on screen to sign an armistice with the interdimensional aliens.

Oikawa laughs, just presses his nose against the softest part of Hajime’s neck, bristle of his hair included, and takes in the warmth of his whole-body blush.

“Oh, Iwa-chan, you’re no fun,” Oikawa says, “but you’re not saying _no_ , either.”

“I wasn’t planning on saying _no_.”

“Tricky.”

“No, I'm just being _honest._ ”

“Should we go upstairs, then?” Oikawa asks, the opposite of coy.

“Lead the way,” Hajime gives up a grin, lets Oikawa get up first, and follows the easy way he ambles towards his room. On the way, he catches the last glimpse of a _breaking news_ segment on the television, sees the daily death toll in red, and tells himself to keep his steps light, anyway.

 

**_x_ **

 

"Are you hiding from me, Oikawa?"

Oikawa laughs, soft and ever disingenuous. "Why would I do that, Iwa-chan?"

"Your hands are covering your face."

"Are they now?"

From the first breath to the present, Hajime has never understood the matter of keeping the stars in wide-set eyes. He's heard the phrase too often—about the light going out of them, dimming into something dark, but in his journey to keep things simple, he's never thought too much about such figurative things. _'People can't keep the stars in their eyes,'_ he used to think, _'because you can't put them there in the first place._  

Tracing over Oikawa's raised hands, Hajime looms closer over the other boy and watches him peek from behind the space between his fingers. Hajime's always liked Oikawa's fingers, his hands; unlike the figurative, they've always been there, to be touched, meant to hold and serve and set. They're lithe and always just a little on the cold side, even in the dead of summer, and they're certainly in the need of something warm for Autumn; Hajime scrunches Oikawa's palms into fists, holds them in his own heated hands, and tears them down from his face without much of a fight. 

But despite all things touched, _tangible_ , Hajime forgets about the mass of bones and skin he's holding when he gets to see Oikawa like this, unfurled somehow. Parted at invisible seams with scanning eyes and cooing lips. In the darkness, he kisses Oikawa on the bridge of the nose, hopes that might bring him back to his senses, and realizes he might not get to regain them at all. 

"Iwa-chan." Oikawa lets go from one of Hajime's hands, slides his fingers across the back of his neck, fluttering like he's got the leather of a volleyball in his hands, and whispers his name over and over again. Still not daring to move, Hajime watches every little motion Oikawa makes—the way he presses his head to the side, resisting embarrassment, his mouth, mashing closed to prevent frivolous, diverting words, his eyes— _those eyes—_ wide and glassy but squinting at the corners like he doesn't want to see his own light. Hajime swims in them for a little while longer, just for as long as Oikawa's impatience will allow, and presses himself close, his own eyes shut, for a kiss.

" _Iwa-chan,_ " he whispers, faces still close. Hajime thinks it's too early for him to start breaking already. 

"Iwa-chan."

They remain like this, kissing then parting, only to go back at it once more like the changing of seasons. Their summers come when they can't keep their hands off each other, while their winters leave them both hesitant but itching for continued warmth. This time, Hajime is the one to separate from him, mostly out of breathlessness, and lets himself hang blatantly over Oikawa's chest. _'Too close,'_ he thinks, like that'll get the either of them to stop. Like this is the first time he's kissing Oikawa again. He almost wants to cry about it, it feels so _stupidly_ good, but resolves to dive in towards him instead. 

"Iwa-chan, are you really staying the night?" Oikawa asks, not daring to look Hajime in the eyes with his question. He rolls his head up to the ceiling and keeps it there, like he's just asked Hajime to marry him and he's expecting nothing but no's.

Hajime can't help but smile at this. _'Too close,'_ he thinks again. He looms closer, exhales near the cusp of the other boy's ear, " _well, I've got no where else to go_ ," and feels Oikawa careen into the slightest arch under him, more bothered than not. _'Too close,'_ Hajime almost whispers out loud this time, because he thinks his heart might jump right out of his throat at the motions.

"How forward of you," Oikawa edges out into his ear, slowly casting his glances back at him. "When did you learn how to flirt, Iwa-chan?"

"One of us has to be good at it," Hajime jokes, still embarrassed. Oikawa actually gasps of all things, like he's actually offended, but he just wrangles a languid arm over Hajime and takes him in for another kiss, welcoming the both of them into another summer and Hajime's favorite season. He feels ants crawl up his back when Oikawa floats his fingertips under his shirt and up his back, every hitch of breath like he's just run the entire neighborhood in the sun; with this, Hajime almost forgets about the deepening autumn outside and feels the sweat seep. _'Too close,'_ he thinks again, as Oikawa gets his shirt off completely, _'but give it to me every time.'_ Their eyes meet the moment Oikawa collects the stars in his again, and Hajime knows it's a mix of dazzled and completely terrified—and just before Oikawa can blink it away, Hajime makes a wish as a believer he never, never thought he'd be.

_'No matter where we'll be, just as friends or something more, let me have this all the time. Give it to me every time.'_

 

**_x_ **

 

In the morning, Hajime steps through the front door of his house, exchanges his shoes for house slippers, and hides the hickeys on his collarbone with a tactfully placed hoodie collar. His mother, smiling, comes into the hallway from the kitchen (Hajime guesses she’s grilling filefish for breakfast, or some tasty equivalent) and offers her son a freshly pressed uniform for the day. With a tired _“thank you,”_ he takes it into his hands, fingers wrapping around the hanger, and steps further into the house with a half hearted grin. 

_"Hey, Iwa-chan, do you want to walk to school together later?"_

_"Why do you even to ask? Don't we do that, anyway?"_

_"I know, but it feels nice, don't you think? It's different when we're like this."_

When Hajime lets that trace of a smile turn into something more whole, he forces it behind the back of his folded hand in hiding. His mother doesn't notice.

“I was worried you wouldn’t be coming home this morning,” Hajime's mother continues. “Did you see the news last night? Twenty people in Miyagi died last night from aneurysms, and I was worried you’d be the twenty-first. Have you been experiencing any headaches?” Her hand brushes up against Hajime’s temple, right at the point where the slight yank of his hair meets bareness. Hajime just lets her, shakes his head, and hopes she doesn’t notice the kiss-made bruises on the back of his neck.

“Feeling perfectly fine,” Hajime says, leaning back to crack the knots in his back. “Just tired.”

“Good, but just make sure you keep an eye out for things like that,” she warns. “I know you have a tournament coming up soon, but do watch out for your stress levels. I warned your father of the same thing and he’s taken a week off from work to unwind.”

Hajime nods, used to his mother’s gentle naggings. “That’s good for him. What’s he going to be doing, then?”

“Oh, probably catching up on his shows. Maybe he’ll take up his puzzles again...those hard one thousand piece types? And you know, he was going to paint over the birdhouse for me today, but he _insists_ he's too comfortable in the house. What a hopeless man," she muses.

Hajime shrugs. "I can paint it today, if you want me to. We don't have practice, so I have nothing to do." 

His mother perks up and claps her hands together in gratitude. "It wouldn't be too much trouble, Hajime?"

"Not at all," he says, "though I don't know much about painting."

“It’s fine! Just be sure to cover as much as you can,” she nods along. “I was thinking a nice lavender, since your grandmother was always a big fan of that color. Oh, your ancestors will be so proud of you.”

“I don’t know about that,” he laughs lightly. “I should probably pay my respects more often.”

“Well, think of the painting as making it up, then. But honestly, give yourself a little more credit, Hajime. I think you’re living up to the birdhouse quite nicely.”

Wrinkling his nose, Hajime can’t help but wonder about that; for all of his years resurrecting under that same birdhouse, watching it tilt by its hook against the summer breeze, he’s never thought to ask about its significance. He’s always thought of it as a funny little family heirloom, meant to last past monsoons and nasty house fires, sturdy and reliable but somehow always wavered by the changing current of wind. Sometimes he forgets that it’s even there, _it’s that nondescript_ , but he always finds it anyway, hanging by the high string of a never-fraying clothesline. 

“What do you mean by that, mom?” he asks his mother next, following her down the hallway. She smiles, hums out a small sigh like she’s been waiting for Hajime to ask about this, to be old enough to notice the small things like _bird houses_ and the way they hang from the edge of the sky, and looks out the kitchen window at the morning ahead.

“Well,” she singsongs, “it’s really quite an old saying, one that was popular back before even _I_ was born. They say it is an indestructible birdhouse, a constant good luck charm for our family. It’s a funny little thing, don’t you think? Because the paint might chip from time to time, but the wood never rots.”

Hajime nods. He knows that much. “I always thought it was magic when I was small,” he admits, slightly bashful about things like that. 

“Ah, no, it’s just a regular bird house,” he says. “But I think that's what’s amazing about it. It was carved back in the _Meiji_ era, of all times, and it’s still stayed intact.” She looks over her shoulder, back at her son. “But say, do you get why it’s a lucky charm for us, Hajime?" 

“No, I don’t think I do,” he doesn’t want to try to guess.

“It blesses you with indomitable strength, a perseverance for all ages,” she tells him like this is some impossible bedtime story, “to house the wretched and the broken," Hajime’s mother recounts the rest of the story like one of her mottos, ones Hajime's had to learn over the years, "to be a halfway home for those trying to reach the sky."

"That sounds too poetic for my tastes," Hajime says, refraining from rolling his eyes. He wonders if he should take all of his recent encounters with the _figurative_ as some cosmic sign to pick up a major in literature or some similar scholarly pursuit. Hajime ultimately he chalks it all up to his recent and _bubbling_ feelings for Oikawa Tooru, decides that _his first relationship_ is both the best and worst thing that's never happened to him, and chooses to let all these spoken sonnets slide this time.

Hajime's mother sighs. "Oh, my dearest son," she teases, just a little too obviously, "sometimes you're going to need a little of that in your life. Makes things a little prettier, don't you think?"

"I guess," he answers with a shrug. "But sometimes I think it gets you no where." 

His mother just nods because she must know her son by now. Merely taking the fish off the grill—she's actually made mackerel pike for breakfast this morning, one of Hajime's favorites—she sets some on a plate for him and lets Hajime find peace with eyes out the window.

On poetry, food untouched, Hajime thinks of the stars in a particular boy's eyes, his flimsy veils, a birdhouse's eternal fortitude, and all of the other unsaid things on the tip of his tongue. Oh, how he'd like to say them, how he'd like to think they'll all make pretty sounds when he finds the words, but he knows, that sometimes, they won't. Hajime is too harsh for that, much in the same way Oikawa needs the truth lit up for him sometimes.

Hajime mashes his lips closed and tells his mother he isn't hungry. Lightness, in both the good sense and something unbearable, will tend to do that to a teenage boy in love.

 

**_x_ **

 

(With his head in the clouds, Hajime forgets to paint the birdhouse after school. He wonders, with a laugh on his lips, if his ancestors will call for divine retribution, but continues to walk the park path with Oikawa anyway. For all the times Oikawa has taken to eating the last popsicle, he's been surprisingly good with sharing his pudding cup today, and Hajime relish every second of it.)

 

**_x_ **

 

"You think this is the year we go to nationals?"

Hajime smirks, slams down one of Oikawa's tosses with the usual precision, and lets that be his answer.

 

**_x_ **

 

But _Harukou_ slips away from them again when Shiratorizawa comes crashing in, and Hajime can't help but think how sick he is of cheerleaders, _taiko_ drums, and the chant of the _ever venerable_ Ushiwaka's name. Wiping the sweat off his brow—and Hajime swears it's just sweat and nothing more—he wonders why he can't shut it out like he does during the actual matches; noises still whirring like he's in the middle of a battlefield, the echoes of the gym send Hajime into a tailspin and onto the ground, right off the line he was supposed to be standing in with his teammates. He takes a deep breath, tries blinking away his oncoming headache, the angry tears, and realizes he can't get up at all.

"Oi, Iwaizumi, are you—oh, shit. Your nose is bleeding." Hanamaki crouches down next to him. "Did someone hit you in the nose?" he asks. Hajime finds the strength to shake his head. From there, the coach dismisses Shiratorizawa prematurely, and they never get to receive their promised handshakes. Like a plain before a storm, their part of the crowd erupts into rumbling and the _taiko_ drums stop. On the other side, Seijou cheering section livens up in the worst way, and soon all Hajime hears is his name, spoken like he's already met his end.

_"Hey, is Iwaizumi-kun all right?”_

_“I would certainly hope so. He’s our best attacker.”_

_"Hey! Iwaizumi Hajime! Get back up!"_

" _Push them back, Hajime! Push them back, Hajime!"_ he pretends to hear instead, but he succumbs to the screeching in his ears instead. When he tries to stand, he sees the ceiling at his toes and meets the ground again. His vision blurs, but he finds no reprieve of unconsciousness. 

"Hey!" Hajime can hear Oikawa. He's angry. " _Hey!_ " Openly so, in that breezy way he still keeps his voice, but angry, for sure. "Are you listening to me?" It just snarls instead of howling outright.

"I'm telling you Oikawa-kun, the last ambulance was taken just ten minutes ago. Someone had a really bad accident on the court and—"

"Iwa-chan doesn't have the time for that!" Oikawa says, just as Hajime's sense of hearing goes out, too. Soon after, the pinching returns to the back of Hajime's head in tidal waves, washing the sound out of his ears and threatening to carry him away altogether. He reaches out when he still can, in blindness, scared as scared can get, and lets his hand clamp down in the care of another. 

 _"Hajime,"_ the voice tells him. Even on the verge of dying, he knows it's Oikawa. It's always, always Oikawa. Lights blip behind his eyelids when he says his name again, not Iwa-chan, but _"Hajime,"_ the rest of his voice fading away when those pinches turn into typhoons. Hajime thinks Oikawa might be saying, _"you're not going to die, okay?"_

But of course he will. Of course he does. _Silly Oikawa, it's just one in a thousand, after all._ So when it happens, Hajime just remembers to close his eyes, wills himself to, so he doesn't scare the rest of the team with something staring. He's seen people die with their eyes open, and it is not a nice sight. With this, he feels all the gravity leave his body, like he's already floating, and hears one last  sweet sound.

"Hajime," Oikawa calls again, voice laced in denial. He almost sounds like he's laughing. _"Hey, Hajime."_

 

**_x_ **

 

_"Oikawa, you have to get off of him. They need to take him away, now."_

_"Don't touch me!"_  

_“Come on! You’re not doing anyone any good!”_

_“Please, Iwa-chan! Iwa-chan! We were supposed to start our third year, together!”_

 

**_x_ **

 

_“Hey, Iwa-chan."_

Hajime breathes out.

 _"Are you there?"_  

The first time Hajime hears Oikawa’s voice in the void, it sounds like he’s reading a letter on the other side. 

 _“I’m writing this letter to you because you’ve been gone for two whole weeks and I’m getting antsy. I’m not even sure why, honestly, because it’s not like I_ miss _you, or anything. I figured I should just write to you, in case this letter really makes it through the mailbox. It probably won’t, but that’s okay.”_

Hajime kicks through the void momentarily in swimming, realizes that the water makes too much sound, and lets himself rest with his face to the sky that separates them. Oikawa has taken pause, and Hajime just searches for the sound of his setter through it. _'Come on,'_ he mouths, daring him to keep going.

And he does. _“Well, here’s some good news. The third years have already said goodbye to the team and I’ve been named captain for the upcoming season. Isn’t that exciting, Iwa-chan? Of course I’d be the natural choice.”_ Oikawa hums at this, _demurely_ of all things, and Hajime pictures someone too smug to handle. He almost wishes he was on the other side to flick him on the forehead, but he lets Oikawa go on. _“And well,”_ Oikawa continues, “ _while that front page headline happened, you were also named the ace. I guess that’s kind of cool, too. Congratulations, Iwa-chan, and I hope you like the number four. Ironic, considering the fact that you’re still dead, and all.”_

Hajime scoffs. “ _What?_ ” he asks, barking at no one. Oikawa can't hear him. “Like I’m not a natural choice, either?” He doesn’t have much to say about the number itself, but picturing his _four_ standing next to Oikawa’s proud _one_ feels off putting to him. Maybe he’ll argue about it when he gets back, because he thinks he’d be suited for _two_ , if not _one._ He thinks he has the strength for that, too, _one,_ if not the temperament. He could always work on that, but— _ah,_ oh well. Even if he can’t be captain, he knows he’ll help lead the team when he gets back. Hajime can’t pretend he’s not excited about being the ace, anyway. He can't pretend that Oikawa Tooru wouldn't be a good captain.

_“So, please be prepared to work extra hard when you get back, Iwa-chan! I’m counting on you.”_

“I will, _six_ kawa,” Hajime sighs out. “Believe that.” From there, he expects Oikawa’s letter-reading to end. Hajime thinks about how much longer he wants to float in the void.

_"Say, Iwa-chan?"_

Hajime peeks up back the sky. "What now?" he asks. Oikawa draws in another breath, shaky and slow, like a sigh. 

 _"Since I don't think you'll ever get to read this anyway, I guess I can be freer with my words, right? I guess it's a good way to clear my head without having you hear any of it,"_ Oikawa pauses again after that, and Hajime wonders if he'll actually continue on with what he's saying. On the other side, he imagines Oikawa sitting next to the red mailbox with his letter in his clenched hands, head hopefully not bowed low. Hajime sort of wishes that Oikawa won't finish this letter, because he thinks there's no need to get so _morose_ over someone who'll be back sooner than later.

_"Iwa-chan, I was just thinking—this was your fifth death. And to me, that's half-way, you know, living with just ten and all. I started pacing around thinking, 'oh no, Iwa-chan's at his halfway mark too! This is sorta bad!' but then...I realized that you aren't. You've got twenty whole lives ahead of you. That halfway point won't come to you for a long time."_

Bitterness coats Oikawa's laughter. He clicks his tongue like he's trying to get rid of the taste.

 _"So I kept thinking...isn't it unfortunate, then? To be with such a handsome, talented boy with only six lives? Tragic. The irony!"_ he continues on, words pleasant but severed from anything kind. Hajime ducks himself under the void's water to avoid hearing any more, but he knows Oikawa's voice will still ring clear anywhere. 

_"Ah, but perhaps I should just get to the point, yes? I'm running out of room on the paper and I've written as small as I can. On the matter of the lifespans I've been thinking about..."_

Hajime reemerges from the cool depths. He opens his eyes to the sky.

_"Tell me, Iwa-chan—wouldn't it be easier to love someone with the same number of lives as you?"_

(His mother's voice comes back into his memory in the precise moment he thinks he might blow up: "Remember, dear, the void is a place of reflection and deep contemplation. Take a lot of deep breaths and rest as much as you need to, and try not to make too much noise.") 

"You have _got_ to be fucking kidding me," Hajime curses out anyway, lifting himself from the void without a chance to say goodbye to it this time. He wipes tears he doesn't know he was crying, lets them drop into the abyss under him, and comes back surging to the place he knows.

 

**_x_ **

 

 _Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry_  

_Don't you dare cry, Hajime_

 

**_x_ **

 

With a string of obscenities on his tongue and tie tied much too tight for his mourning suit, Hajime comes barreling back into the other world with hellbent intention. It is night when he reappears, colder than he last remembered, and the high-hanging birdhouse is no where to be seen on its usual line. Tearing away from the empty space, he runs from the yard, right into the gridded alleys of his neighborhood, and calls for Oikawa through wooden fences and the neighborhood's high walls. He runs right past his own house, past Oikawa's, and into the neighborhood park where they both grew up together. _'He must be here,'_ he thinks. Dashing up the open field, Hajime spots the familiar red mailbox, the silhouette of Oikawa Tooru in the tall grass, and a raised birdhouse in his hands. Hajime comes to a full stop, queasiness hitting from the smell of fresh paint, and feels every curse and obscenity leave his system when he gets to see Oikawa again. Oikawa Tooru, too at ease for words. Oikawa Tooru, in a paint-stained mourning suit of his own.

" _Shit_." Hajime's eyes go wide in the dark. "You didn't—"

"Ah, wait, no, Iwa-chan!" Oikawa drops the birdhouse, still drying from his grasp. "I swear, I didn't die this time," he has the nerve to say with a laugh, an actual, honest-to-god _laugh,_ but Hajime swears he's just about to keel over again from the sight of him in one of those dreaded suits.

"Then why are you..." Hajime can't even finish. "The suit."

Oikawa takes off the blazer altogether, leaves it on the grass, and fastens the buttons on his sleeves. Hajime finds a strange calm, watching Oikawa roll his sleeves up, glances making a trek back up to his face. Oikawa blinks with the sickly moon in his eyes, taunting and meant to mesmerize like every other part of him. At this, as much as Hajime doesn't want to, he relents, slumps to sit in the grass with him, and ignores the oncoming chill of the deepening night. Oikawa just smiles faintly at his company.

"Well, I'm not sure you heard, but they've called off all that _aneurysm_ business, since less and less people started dying from it," Oikawa muses. "So much for an apocalypse, right? But someone in my family had the misfortune of getting one anyway, and the funeral was today. Like, the _real thing._ It was a sad affair, I guess."

Hajime perks up. "It wasn't your sister, was it?"

Oikawa frowns slightly. "No, not her. You think I'd be sitting here painting birdhouses for you if it was her?" he asks, seemingly cross—no, probably so. "It was just my great-uncle in Ishinomaki. We weren't very close."

"I see, then. Well, actually, there's something I want to talk to you about," Hajime says.

"Is that so?"

At this, Oikawa looms closer to Hajime on the grass, paint-wet fingers creeping over his like an incoming tide. Despite every urge to lean forward, Hajime shies away from the subsequent kiss, keeping resolve. He forgets about Oikawa's rolled-up sleeves, the endearing eyes, and the kisses meant to distract, and Oikawa understands this fully. When it comes to Hajime, he knows it'll take more to deter him. Eyes locked, treaties signed, the two of them find silence to drift on and stalemates to prolong.

"You scared me," Hajime admits, and the sentiment makes Oikawa flinch just ever so slightly. "Change out of your suit before you scare me back to death, why don't you?"

Oikawa finds relief in Hajime's words, even if they are the scolding sort. He knows this from the way Oikawa's shoulders slump and the small exhale he gives up, always unheard if not listened to closely.

"I came back earlier because you read your letter to me," Hajime explains abruptly, tired of taking the winding path. "I heard you read every single line of it."

Oikawa frowns. "I didn't read you any letter."

"Well, how ever it got to me, I read it and I just want to tell you—"

"I didn't read you a letter because I never wrote you one."

_"Tell me, Iwa-chan—wouldn't it be easier to love someone with the same number of lives as you?"_

Hajime stares at Oikawa dead on, gripping his fingers around the setter's until he's sure he needs to lighten up from the grasp. He takes a deep breath, scanning everything in Oikawa's face, but nothing reads as a lie this time; there are no pleasant facades of a smile forced, nothing averted. Oikawa's eyes look glassy in the dark, and his mouth stretches into something solemn and serious. Hajime inches himself closer. At this point, he's not sure if Oikawa's telling the truth or just keeping himself from breaking down at the lie, and for this Hajime wonders if he'll ever find the other side of his best friend's breadth. He tells himself he'll have his answers sooner rather than later, because it's _Oikawa_ , and he wouldn't be his best friend if he didn't seek to try.

"Iwa-chan? Do you want to eat something?" Oikawa asks, changing the subject. "You look kind of pale."

"Oikawa."

"All this talking is just waste of energy, don't you think?"

Hajime wonders, with a sigh, if he's just thinking too much about things. He thinks he probably is, with all that running and rustling and worrying for nothing. He could have made it all up in the void, and if not, Oikawa's probably settled into something less dramatic by now. He wouldn't be here, sitting with Hajime, if he hadn't—so with this, Hajime just lets himself think of the question just once more, the last sentence in Oikawa's letter, and tells himself not to panic, or cry, or sink about it. He's back here now, he thinks, as he lies back in the grass, and that is all he can look to. 

"Iwa-chan, _wait_ , are you dying again—"

"I'm just resting, you idiot," Hajime tells Oikawa. He could always eat later. "I came running here for you without stopping."

Hajime takes Oikawa's hand, to which the latter asks, "you would do something like that for me, Iwa-chan?"

"Wouldn't be the first time," Hajime answers back. "Now why don't you lie with me a little bit?" Turning his head from the sky, he watches Oikawa raise his chest up in alarm, lower all his defenses, and flop down on the dirt. With hands still held, Hajime doesn't say anything more on the matter, watches how the trouble never really dissipates from Oikawa's face, and just resolves to enjoy the cool rush of the world come back to him. _Nothing can bother me now._ This is what he tells himself, through and through.

 

**_x_ **

 

_Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry._

_Don't you dare cry, Hajime._  

_Because he's right here. You have him in your hands._

 

**_x_ **

 

Oikawa raises the number _four_ jersey above his face, peeks out from the left side, and proudly tells Hajime, "so here's your new uniform." 

Hajime grabs it from him, quickly slips it on in the club room, and presses the momentary wrinkles out of it. Tracing his hands over the _four_ , he eyes his best friend curiously, tucks it into his pants, and leans against the lockers.

"When I was on the other side," Hajime starts, "I was told that I was going to be number four, too. You know who told me that?"

Oikawa feigns a playful sort of frown, annoyed, probably, because Hajime hasn't quit bringing up the void for a week now, and smiles with something devious at the corners, crossing his arms in front of him. "Maybe you're just developing a sixth sense, spending so much time there every time you die," he says. "Impressive, Iwa-chan."

"Well, I also know that I've been named ace."

" _Presumptuous,_ Iwa-chan."

"And that you've been named captain."

"Oh, now you're just flattering me." 

"But it's all true, isn't it?" Hajime asks, "because that's what you wrote in your letter." 

"You're certainly excited about a letter that doesn't exist, aren't you, Iwa-chan?" Oikawa asks with a bit of a laugh. "I mean, I don't blame you though, sometimes when I'm on the other side, I hear all sorts of things, like the sound of the Japanese anthem playing at the Olympics...or the taste of freshly baked milk bread. I can understand why you'd feel the things you want to feel over there. It all just happened to come true for you."

Hajime freezes up. He still can't tell whether or not Oikawa is lying, and he begins to wonder why every death of his must result in something obtuse. 

_"Oikawa-kun! Are you ready?"_

Outside in the yard, the coach calls for the captain to announce his selection for second-in-command, for the ever-respected _vice._

"That's not true," Hajime tells Oikawa, limply grasping onto his wrist. Oikawa doesn't respond to the coach's calls, no matter how impatient they're getting. "That's _really_ not true," he says, swallowing down the strange lump in his throat. "When I was over on the other side, I heard something I'd never want to hear in a million years. It was full of doubt, and _doubt_ is the last thing I want." 

Oikawa wrings Hajime's hand away before taking it back again. _Fickle_. He nods, stares back up at Hajime, and smiles once more, quick as a flash. He's upset, not clearly to the naked eye, but it's obvious to Hajime by now. _Very much so._

"Well, sometimes it's just something that crops up, isn't it?" Oikawa asks. "Maybe the _me_ you were dreaming about was just sick of watching you die. Maybe that _Oikawa Tooru_ was having a really bad day, and maybe _he_ couldn't admit he just missed you. Phantoms have feelings too, you know. Even if he isn't real—and you know, he really, _really_ isn't—you should consider this," Oikawa says, like a crescendo about to reach the top, "you should consider the fact he can still get scared too, sometimes." 

With this, Oikawa crouches down to unzip his gym bag, pulls a sealed envelope out of one of the pockets, and hands it to Hajime. 

"Is this the letter?" Hajime asks Oikawa, frankly almost too speechless to speak. The latter has one foot out the door already, his jacket barely slung over one shoulder. 

"No, because I never got that one back. That tends to happen to letters you send," Oikawa answers him offhandedly, a tempered huff disguised as casual, all despite the fact that he is offering Hajime an admission, of all things. "That's just the first team speech I'm about to make. I'm actually quite nervous about it, _thanks for asking_ ," he hums, still agitated. 

Hajime pinches the envelope between his fingers and looks at the name. _Iwaizumi Hajime,_ written in Oikawa's chicken scratch, rests right in the middle, slightly smudged in silver ink. 

"What does this have to do with me?" Hajime asks.

Oikawa smiles, lifted for the briefest moment, comes over once more, and squeezes Hajime's hand by the fingers. This surprises Hajime, because that's what Oikawa does, _startle,_ despite every urge to resist him. 

"You'll see," Oikawa whispers, still not letting go, "and I'll show you that doubt is something that passes." 

He holds on tighter, breaks for less than a second, before regaining his captain's form. It says, in every instance, _'you might be the ace, but I'm getting stronger, too.'_

 

**_x_ **

 

 _Dear obaachan and ojiichan_ ,

 _It's your grandson again. How are you two doing? How are the radishes? The grid notebook poetry? Sorry I haven’t written in so long, but volleyball’s kept me really busy lately that I hardly lift my pen for homework…(oh but please don’t tell my mom and dad that. I think they could do without the unnecessary stress.)_  

 _But I just couldn’t resist—I just kinda need advice on something, a question of sorts, and I think it's one that you might be able to answer. I find that people of old age are really the most wise at things like this, and I assume that things take in a new perspective when you're looking down from heaven._  

_It's just that, well, there's this boy I like. He likes me back (I think he does, anyway) and we're just trying to make things work. But well, he’s got more lives than me (and it’s not a lot, like a hundred or anything, but you know...oh, I must be babbling by now.) Point is, we don’t match up, even though Iwa-chan and I have done so are entire lives. It’s just something to think about, but it’s not like I’m scared or anything._

_(Well, okay, maybe I am, but just a little bit.)_

_So, here’s my question, and it’s one you don’t have to answer right away—_

_Just how do you stretch six lives to match twenty?_

_-Tooru_

 

**_x_ **

 

"So, after _very_ little consideration, because this should be a given, I am naming Iwa-chan as my co-captain," Oikawa announces to the rest of the team. Hajime is not surprised, but he goes red in the face about it, anyway. He nods his head lightly, receives low bows from the first years and snide little grins from Matsukawa and Hanamaki. The captain himself just smiles pleasantly, lets a glint of something more sincere come through, and lets his palm slide across Hajime’s just a little too slowly in a handshake. Together, they run the drills that afternoon, fingers pointed, new team fostered, and Hajime can’t help but enjoy every single second of the toil. 

 _"Doesn't Iwaizumi look extra happy today? It's kind of scary."_  

_"Well, it felt like him and Oikawa were on weird terms lately. Maybe they finally got that settled."_

_"Is that so? Either way, it's a nice way to start the season."_

That night, they are the last two to lock up, keys to match and steps light down the path. Hajime runs his face against the underside of his t-shirt from the sweat. Oikawa just runs his hands through Hajime’s hair, one last secret way to carry away things like doubt. 

“We’re going to have a good team this year, don’t you think?” Oikawa asks, on their way down the dirt path. He has another letter to his grandparents in his hands, and Hajime watches how he waves it like a fan.

"And it's been getting warmer, hasn't it?" Oikawa muses. "I know how you are about summer. We'll have training camp and ice pops and trips to the beach."

Hajime smiles. "Yeah, if you want," he says, though he isn't a big fan of the beach. He gets tan enough already without going, and sometimes Oikawa just ends up burning altogether. Still, he takes it as a sign for staying _together_ , regardless of whether Oikawa sent any letters to him in the void. He tells himself what Oikawa told him in the locker room: _doubt comes, but it also passes._ Warmer times are always up ahead.

"Hey, Iwa-chan, do you really hate the beach that much?" Oikawa asks out of no where.

"What? No, I mean a _little_ bit, but...why do you ask?" Hajime deflects right back, feeling the off urge to clear his throat.

"I don't know," Oikawa says as he gets closer, waves a thumb over Hajime's eyelashes, and blinks in observation. "You look like you want to cry."

Hajime feels the sob at the top of his throat force itself out as a light and scoffed out laugh.

"And why would I feel the need to cry now, you dumbass?"

 

**_x_ **

 

Every morning, before everyone else has gotten in for practice, the captain and his _vice_ take care in raising the nets. It is usually one of the quietest parts of their day, because Hajime has not quite woken up yet and Oikawa's already entranced with potential plays, but he thinks that something might be different today; after days of making up (for something Hajime will never completely understand, to be honest, but he likens it to closing out their version of the _Cold War_ ) he finds that the lightness between them has reached a new peak. Oikawa smiles at Hajime from across the net—really, _really_ smiles, subtle and hidden but there all the same. Hajime returns the favor, telling his own unsaid secrets in the process, spreading his version of _'don't forget that I still like you, you dumbass.'_

At this, Oikawa leans in when he thinks Hajime might kiss him from his side of the net, but all he receives is a well-placed flick on the forehead. Oikawa frowns at him, rubs the red spot on his skin, and gets a kiss from his ace, anyway.

 

**_x_ **

 

“Are you meeting with your counselor soon, Iwa-chan?” Oikawa asks as they’re tossing a ball around in the open fields, late spring about to burst into the rain of a usual summer.

Hajime nods with a sigh. “Tomorrow. How about you?”

“I met with her today,” Oikawa says, turning his back on Hajime to follow after the ball.

“And?” Hajime asks.

“Well, it was a short meeting, and not very interesting,” Oikawa laughs. “I guess that’s all I’ll say about that.”

 

**_  
x_ **

 

Breath still heavy, Hajime finds a seat with the guidance counselor by the window, folds his hands in front of them, and looks up at the clock in front of the room. 

"You're ten minutes late, Iwaizumi-kun," the counselor tells him without looking up from her folder, pushing her glasses up. "Third years should outgrow _tardiness_."

(Of _course_ he'd be stuck with the strictest counselor in all of Seijou. _The prefecture_ , perhaps.)

Hajime bows his head lightly and nods in apology to her. "I know, I'm sorry, morning practice ran a bit late and we had to clean up. Won't happen again,” he says, with a reaffirming nod. It feels stiff underneath his shirt collar.

"Are you sure about that, young man?"

With a counterfeit smile, he says, "yes, definitely." Hajime mashes his lips closed, frankly guilty. He prefers not to lie, especially if it comes in two parts: first, practice _hadn't_ run late, because Hajime and Oikawa had locked up early to sneak kisses in the club room, _blissfully,_ one would call it, going well past the fifteen minutes they had allotted themselves, and second, Hajime honestly can't guarantee that it won't happen again. At this, the counselor says nothing though, twirls the pencil in her possession, and gets on to other business.

"Well, we are here for the first of many meetings. As you are fully aware, you're a third year now, Iwaizumi-kun. That is something I hope you’re taking seriously,” she says, eyeing him up and down. Hajime resists squirming in his seat. “It is my job to help parse out any future goals you might have. For instance, your math skills aren’t so bad, according to your records, and I would say you’d fare well in something like _engineering_ —”

“I want to keep playing,” Hajime tells the counselor, a little too quickly. “I just want to go to a university with the best prospects for volleyball. I’ll figure out that _major_ stuff later.”

“Iwaizumi-kun,” the counselor says, with the a shake of her head. “you must understand that this year’s graduating class is very strong. This goes for academics _and_ your peers in volleyball. Shiratorizawa’s Ushijima. We have Oikawa Tooru, if you’ve noticed—”

“I have,” Hajime answers her, without hesitation. “He’s very good.” An understatement. 

“And if you want a future in volleyball, you better play your best for the scouts this season, then,” she says. “I wish there was a way to sugarcoat things for you, but I can’t. You’ve got a lot of competition, and I would hate for you to not make the cut.”

Hajime nods. “It’s fine. I know,” he tells her. “I’ll do my best.”

“And you’ll consider your other options...besides volleyball, right? For practical reasons.”

Hajime stares up. “Yeah. Maybe I’ll even take up a major in literature, or something,” he jokes.

“I wouldn’t. Your scores in that class are terrible.”

“They’re not that bad.”

“ _Iwaizumi-kun._ ”

“I will make sure to take everything into account, sensei,” he says more seriously.

“Good, because I can’t have another _wildcard_ stumbling in here,” she notes, just a bit too candidly. “It’s one thing to have Oikawa Tooru announce his candidacy for the big leagues, but I’d like you to take a more careful approach.”

Hajime perks up at this. “And what makes him so different? I understand that setters like him are hard to come by, but I’ve practiced hard, too. We both have. Why are you so free to let him pursue volleyball?” 

The counselor shuffles her notes around, opens and closes her mouth to speak, and clears her throat in a sudden bout of something coy. Unfolding his hands from the table, he almost wants to leave right then and there when he sees that familiar look in the counselor’s eyes. It’s the same flash of pity Oikawa gets when his fangirls find out that ‘ _yes, the six thing is true,’_ that same queasy glance from first years who find out they have more lives than him. At this, Hajime gets up—almost stumbles out of his seat, really—and wishes he hadn’t asked the question to begin with, because he knows the answer. _Of_ _course he fucking does_.

“Iwaizumi-kun.”

“I just remembered I left something in the gym. I should go get it—”

“You do understand that people like _Oikawa Tooru..._ do a little less planning than you.”

“I really should get it, it’s kind of important to me and—” 

“To have six lives, well, he _should_ aim for the all the best things, before it’s too late, and—”

“I’m sorry, I really have to go now! I’ll see you next time,” Hajime tells her, going out the door and sliding it shut behind him. The counselor doesn’t dare chase after Hajime, and he just ends up pacing all the way back to the gym without going inside. _He doesn’t have to._ From behind closed doors, Hajime hears the sound of serves being hit, feet hitting the ground from the usual leaps. Inside, Oikawa Tooru spins a ball in his hands like he’s made his own world, one limitless and at his constant whim.

Outside, Hajime just leans against the door, takes a deep breath, and tells himself there are no such things as _different worlds_ or separating skies, or train tracks going different ways. He reminds himself of kisses under blankets, of the stars in wide set eyes, forehead flicks, of just plain _being together_ , captain and his vice, and finds himself at a crossroads.

" _Iwa-chan_? Are you out there?" Oikawa calls from inside the gym. "I thought your appointment might've ended early. Come hit my toss!" 

"Yeah, coming." 

Hajime just hopes he doesn’t have to cross it soon.

 

**_x_ **

 

"You should be more careful next time, _clumsy_ kawa," Hajime says as he rolls Oikawa's pants leg up, presses ice to his sprained ankle, and watches his setter lie down on the floor under them. Oikawa groans, presses his hands up to his face, and wiggles childishly in place, all sorts of annoyed and _dying_ to get back on court. Over them, the Iwaizumi family birdhouse shakes from the vibrations, foundation waving back and forth in the air, making small _dook dook_ noises from the pebbles jumbling around inside. 

"Coach says I have to take a break. So _unfair,_ Iwa-chan!" Oikawa laments.

"Hey, it's just so you don't end up snapping your foot broken altogether," Hajime warns. "And you can always use the rest. You've been antsy as hell lately, and I don't need you dying from over exhaustion _again_."

"But that's just less time to play, Iwa-chan!" Oikawa whines. "Ushiwaka's poised to represent Japan in a juniors international game! Tobio-chan's enrolled in high school! Scouts! _Nationals_! We have so many people to _crush._ " He lets out a yell reminiscent of some distressed dinosaur, or a terrible impression of one, and absolutely wilts on the deck like a dying flower. 

"Listen here, _antsykawa_ ," Hajime says while hovering closer over Oikawa's leg, pinching his big toe and and frowning, "you'll have the time for all of that if you rest. That's all there is to it."

Oikawa peeks up in between his raised hands. Hajime sees the light brown of his eyes, glimmering like finding pyrite in the water.

" _Time is of the essence_ , Iwa-chan," Oikawa says to him in English, in that funny high-pitched accent he affects when he's reciting homework drills. Hajime only makes out a few words, but the one that sticks to him is _time._ Surely a point of contention. Tongue-tied, Hajime finds silence. 

Oikawa hums out that one note he's always humming out, turns to his side, and faces the sunset before them.

"You know, don't think I haven't noticed, Iwa-chan," Oikawa starts, voice lulled into something peaceful, almost half-asleep. 

"What?" Hajime asks. 

"You didn't call me _six_ kawa all day. You don't call me that much at all, anymore," Oikawa muses. "That's all."

"So?" Hajime frowns. "Maybe you're just looking too into things. Maybe I'm just growing out the nicknames."

Oikawa lowers his hands from his face, pads his cheeks on the way down, and reveals redness on the tips of them; that's where Oikawa always blushes, right on the highest point on his cheekbones like edge of a fuji apple, whether he's embarrassed or in the throes of some private moment, even sometimes when he's got the pressure of saying what's _really_ on his mind. Hajime thinks that this might be one of those rare times, and he braces himself for the potential impact—he hates that he feels his own face go pink, too, and hates that every move of Oikawa's just condemns him to shakiness. 

"Well, I like _six_ kawa," Oikawa remarks, smiling with something sad. He sits up, shifts his other leg onto Hajime's lap, and shimmies himself up the hardwood towards the other boy. "And I'm going to like _five_ kawa, and _four_ kawa, and _three_ —all the way up to the day you have to say, _'ah, good morning, onekawa, prime minister of Japan and ten-time Olympic champion_. _Do you want to watch Awesome Alien Artifacts with me?'_ I'll like it if you're the one to say it. _"_  

 _"What,_ like it's not okay when other people call you that?"

"You're being _presumptuous_ again, Iwa-chan."

"I'm serious." 

"Well, then I'd have to say yes," Oikawa says with a humming sigh. Hajime comes closer to Oikawa, finds himself tucking a hair back behind his ear, and looks away altogether.

"Sometimes, I catch myself cursing at myself whenever I used that nickname. _Sixkawa,"_ Hajime says candidly, with a bit of a laugh. "Because I might make fun of you for a lot of things, and I will continue to do so, trust me on that, but... _fuck_ , I don't know. How have I been joking about your life spans all these years?"

"Is this the start of pity, Iwa-chan?" Oikawa asks, eyes sinking into something demure, even dull, for a moment. 

"If you're going to bring _that_ up again—"

"I'm just kidding," Oikawa actually deadpans. "I know what you mean."

"I hate to be that guy, because so what if we're in our third year of high school? But it's worth thinking about, I think. There's this whole other world outside the prefecture, and we're going to be in it. I just worry about _six_ kawa. I worry about how quickly he might turn into _five_ kawa, or _four_ , or _three_ , being out there. That's all." 

Oikawa leans in, finds Hajime with a kiss for the lips, and drags it across his cheek instead. With a raised hand, he takes the opportunity to flick Hajime on the forehead this time, ambush complete.

"You're always so annoyingly optimistic," Oikawa says. "Suddenly don't believe in the world anymore?" 

"No...that's not it," Hajime answers him, lowering Oikawa's hand from his face and keeping it in his palm.

"Oh, then what is it?" Oikawa tilts his head to the side, curious. 

"I just don't think it's enough for you, sometimes."

At this, Hajime bites his tongue and looks down, one hand still nursing Oikawa's foot with ice, and lets the silence creep in. When he stares back up, Oikawa's cheeks are still red and he's thinking, too. _Always, always thinking, that Oikawa Tooru—_ a mix of good and bad and everything in-between, constantly spinning. Hajime briefly wonders if he's writing letters in his head again. He hopes he never has to receive another one in his twenty lifetimes.

Breaking into a smile, Oikawa's fondness always reminds Hajime of softness, of sadness. 

"Wouldn't it be nice, to get everything I wanted?" Oikawa asks.

"Yeah."

"But that's not how things work, huh?" 

"Glad you've come to that revelation," Hajime says, daring to joke, because he knows that Oikawa's learned this long ago. 

"But there are still some things I can reach out for," Oikawa says. "Like a spot on the Olympic team, or endorsements for a new line of _pocari sweat_ , or foaming face wash."

"Sure."

"And things I'll always have. Like the bed in my room, or a volleyball to serve."

"Uh-huh."

"And alley cats to pet, and fresh milk bread in the mornings," Oikawa continues on. "And our team, and annoying exams, the way pocket change jingles. Laundry lint. Rain in june." Oikawa takes their connected palms, raises it to the air, and smiles. "The way you can just take anyone's hand, squeeze it tight, and realize it's not the same as holding someone else's." He laughs at this. " _Things I'll always have._ What do you think that means, Iwa-chan?"

“You’re ridiculous.”

Hajime rolls his eyes, kisses Oikawa square on the lips, and watches him bloom into something flustered. Despite the call for extra rest, the swinging birdhouse and the ancestors that may he watching, Oikawa lowers himself on the floor, wrangles his arms around Hajime, and lets the kisses come with ferocity. They remain like this, kissing and entangled in only the most covert of moments, and let themselves rise and fall in their specific way.

"Hey, Iwa-chan," Oikawa says, lips still pressed against the base of Hajime's neck.

"Yeah?" Hajime asks.

"Don't stop calling me those nicknames. No matter where we end up with numbers. _Six_ kawa, fivekawa, one. It's all okay with me." 

Hajime smiles faintly. "It doesn't bother you, then? It's not limiting?"

At the question, Oikawa unlatches himself from Hajime, sits up, and carefully sets his ankle on the ground. He stares up at the sky, coral hues finding delight for the oncoming summer. It should be a good one, this year.

“Limiting. What a word.” 

“Not a personal favorite of mine, either.”

" _Limiting—_ Wasted time is limiting. These tricky little lifespans are limiting. But for some reason, when you call me by that, _Sixkawa_ , it doesn't feel that way at all," Oikawa says, without looking Hajime in the eye. "When you call me that way, it feels like I can keep going."

Hajime stays down on the ground, watches the small of Oikawa's back dare to become something big, and smiles when he knows he can't see him. 

"All right, then, _six_ kawa."

Oikawa looks over his shoulder, catches Hajime's grin anyway, and emits one of his own.

 

**_x_ **

 

_Dear obaachan and ojiichan,_

_Just a quick update._  

 _I want to let you know that I am both scared and happy, but I think it’s all right._  

_What a feeling this is. I feel like I could run a billion miles._

_-Tooru_

 

**_x_ **

 

When Seijou is matched to play Karasuno High School for a practice match two weeks after that, Hajime watches the new _freak quick duo_ in action and secretly smiles for the likes of Kageyama Tobio. He seems happy (or someone on the way to that, at least) working with the tiny middle blocker next to him, and for that, Hajime finds himself satisfied. He will welcome the healthy challenge every which way, and his gifted kouhai is no exception.

"I heard those two have the same number of lifespans," one of the first years, Kunimi, comments in the middle of forming their six-man formation. "But I didn't expect fifty lives out of that small middle blocker guy." 

Kindaichi nods along. "Isn't that normal, pairing up with someone with the same number of lives as you? Their captain and co-captain each have thirty, too, I heard. Whatever works. Maybe the king will finally have someone to hit that _toss_ of his.

"This isn't _dating,_ Kindaichi,” Kunimi muses.

"No, I mean, like, even if it’s not dating. Stuff just feels more in-sync that way, you know.”

Hajime clicks his tongue. “Hey,” he snaps, nodding his head towards the net. “Stop talking and get focused on the game. We have to get ready for interhigh and you guys are no where in shape, yet.” 

 _“Sorry, Iwaizumi-san,_ ” they both say in unison. Hajime scans the door for Oikawa to return to the gym (because _he_ was the one to call for this match in the first place, after all, that _nitwit_ ) sees the ball come to him from one of the baldy’s spikes on the right side, and easily receives it this time. He gets back up from his knees quickly after that, expects Oikawa to be there to make the subsequent toss, but he’s no where to be seen. When Hajime watches Yahaba, the second-string setter, make the play instead, he takes a deep breath and shoos away Kindaichi’s words.

_Isn’t it normal, pairing up with someone with the same number of lives as you?_

Kageyama gets possession of the ball. _Same lives, better plays._

Hajime watches as the ball shoots upward in the king’s toss. _Same lives, better games._

The small middle blocker by the name of _Hinata Shouyou_ slams it down, eyes closed, like he was meant to hit it all along.

 _Same lives, same lives, same lives—_ the mind-made taunts dissipate into something screeching.

"We'll get the next one!" Hajime calls out the rest of the team, clearing out any semblance of bitterness from his system. When cheers erupt from the sidelines and Oikawa Tooru comes waltzing back into the gym from his warm ups, Hajime ignores the burning behind his ears, fires up the team like a good co-captain should, and ignores all the rumblings in his own head. Oikawa takes one of the six spots (eagerly in his own warped, _breezy_ way, before turning into something of a shark about a mere _pinch serve_ ) and slams one down, electric, in his number twelve lime green pinafore. He does it again, and then again, catching the other team on their toes.

(Hajime has to lower his heels back to the ground whenever Oikawa makes contact, because he tells himself he _cannot_ be this excitable. Not as co-captain with a game on the line. Not about the serves he’s seen a million times, and not about the upstarts with matching lives. _He must keep calm_ , he tells himself. Because Oikawa Tooru can still serve and hit like that. Because he’s afraid, like Hajime, but he still tells himself to keep going.

Because _same lives_ be damned—aside from volleyball and winning _at_ volleyball, Hajime has hardly found Oikawa through the likes of _sameness._ )

 

**_x_ **

 

Oikawa’s first scouting offer comes at the start of interhigh, at the hands of a head coach from the University of Tsukuba in the Ibaraki prefecture. At first, Hajime doesn’t know he’s a scout, because they’ve always been adept at hiding in the stands until matches were over, and he’s never really paid attention to the likes of _Tsukuba_ ; but Hajime can’t help but jump when a man with a clipboard and looped phone videos of _Oikawa Tooru’s jump serve_ comes up to him by the VBC bus, asks for the captain, and finds him declining love notes from the girls he’s never been good at rejecting. Hajime watches him bow low to the older man, excuse himself from the rest of the team with excited little nods, and talk on about himself and the team’s progress this year.

When he comes back, Oikawa is holding a brochure for the University of Tsukuba’s recruitment program, a baseball cap with a purple logo on it, and a bunch of unsigned paperwork. He gets on the bus with all of these things in hand, _fidgeting,_ and almost forgets to load his duffle bag in the carry-on.

“Don’t tell me you accepted an offer already, _captain_. Didn’t anyone ever teach you the virtue of patience?” Hanamaki takes the cap for himself and places it on his head, nodding proudly at the fit. 

Oikawa sits next to Hajime on the bus, stifles how red his face is (it’s those _fuji apples,_ again) and just tucks his chin under the safety of his jacket collar. Under the corner of it, Hajime still makes out a silent laugh and a smile that Oikawa is having a hard time containing. In return, Hajime smiles too, takes the brochure for himself, and hides behind it while the rest of the team bothers their setter.

“Tsukuba’s dominated the intercollegiate competitions since the late nineties,” Oikawa explains, because _of course_ he’d know something like that from his countless hours watching playback videos. “It would be a crime if I didn’t go.” 

“Well, looks like someone’s going to leave this town. Lucky guy, ‘cause all I’ve got is the fishmonger's,” Matsukawa muses. “So, are you really going to go then, Oikawa?”

“I don’t know,” Oikawa shrugs. “But it’s... _good_.” He can’t even find the words to sugarcoat it. Another smile bursts across his face, not at all subdued or sunny in some calculated way. He’s _happy_ , and it’s _infectious_ , and Hajime has no idea what to do about the grins he can’t stifle, too.

“Does that mean you’re going to clock out now, _college_ kawa?” Watari, the resident libero, asks from the back of the bus, seemingly awoken from his nap. 

“Never!” Oikawa shouts back, seemingly hurt. “We’ve still got nationals, guys. Because at the end of the day, _getting scouted_ just means more paperwork and a goodbye party you’ll be planning for me!” he exclaims, standing up to face  the rest of the bus. Hajime hears collective groans rise from the seats, how quickly they end their excitements about _Oikawa Tooru, University Star_ and go back to resting for their match tomorrow. Oikawa, still entranced by the prospect of things to come, just grips the paperwork harder in his hands and pretends he doesn’t want to scream.

Smiling out the window, Hajime just takes Oikawa’s hand, lets his setter swing it around a little, and shares in the excitement. 

“Congratulations, _six_ kawa,” Hajime mumbles out towards the window sill. At the call, Oikawa lays his head on his shoulder, reaches up, and whispers something in the ace’s ear.

_“Your turn’s coming too, Iwa-chan.”_

 

**_x_ **

 

  
_Dear obaachan and ojiichan,_

 _I’m writing to you two because my sister says you’d like to hear about my newest accomplishments, but to be honest, I’m not sure if that’s what I want to talk about with you today, because I’ve been walking around town recently and I’ve noticed the strangest thing. The air constantly smells like it’s burning, and Iwa-chan tells me it’s just the scent of an oncoming rain, but I don’t believe it. It smells like something worse than that, like something terrible, but in the most subtle way, and I can’t explain why._  

_Do you think you can help your grandson out?_

_(What a pointless letter. I’m sorry!)_

_-Tooru_

 

**_x_ **

 

_“This is a breaking news bulletin, brought to you by MPN-8.”_

By the summer of their third year, the very university that first scouted Oikawa appears on the local news to deliver something foreboding. 

_“A correspondent from the University of Tsukuba’s committee on earthquake prediction is here to join us today, and we’re afraid that it’s not the best of news…”_

Hajime has a suitcase to pack when he lets the reporter’s words whir through his head, in one ear and out the other. _“Unusual seismic activity.”_ Did he remember his kneepads? Ah, yes—check, he mustn't forget those. _“Best to stay inside for the next few days.”_ Did he pack his toothbrush? He peers into the smallest compartment of his weekender bag. Yes, accounted for with a small tube of toothpaste. _“Trains still running, but caution against travelling.”_ Hajime packs his volleyball shoes, lays them across his _Aoba Johsai_ team jacket, and practices his best grin in the mirror in the hallway. _“Situation to be monitored.”_ Hajime laughs. He thinks his winning smile might beat the likes of Oikawa Tooru’s.

“Tokyo, here I come," he says, stepping out the door, in the middle of a sunset, about to begin. 

With a roll-on suitcase following behind him, Hajime leaves an empty house, whips out his phone, and calls his parents to tell them that he’s leaving for the weekend. There is no answer, something he expects, because they’re off vacationing in the mountains with little phone or internet reception. Irritated (because their only son is off to get _scouted_ and he’s sort of nervous, but not by much, of course,) he just stares at the screen for a moment and stuffs it in his pocket. With his nerves already at their ends, Hajime flinches when a message vibration goes off, jolting up like he’s jumping for a block, and tells himself, with a bull’s huff, _to calm the fuck down_. _Everything's fine_ , he tells himself. Oikawa’s contact picture flashes across the screen in a text message: **_hey, am I still meeting you at the train station?_** He must have been practicing his serves all morning at the gym, or helping Takeru with his tosses, in order to avoid Hajime.

Hajime hates texting, especially after an argument, but this is the last time he’ll get to see Oikawa for two days. He texts back, **_yeah. Be there in ten minutes._**  

 ** _Okay! No problem, Iwa-chan!_** Hajime stares at his name. _Iwa-chan._ Suppressing a smirk at the screen, he assumes that Oikawa isn't mad about him stealing the last pudding cup anymore.

He walks on, unimpeded on the empty sidewalk. The ground under Hajime rumbles when he makes his way to the town's train station, but he chalks the feeling up to unsettled nerves. _Calm down,_ he tells himself again. _You're just hitting the ball for a bunch of old guys. Calm down. It's fine. You're fine. You'll show them why you're the ace._ Hajime takes a deep breath, but it only works a little.Every step of his still feels like something shaking, like the row rumble of a continuous thunder.

On the way to his 6:50PM departure, Hajime takes notice how empty the town's been today. Barely any cars have rolled through the roads, and even the stray cats haven't been out to play. Peering up at the budding trees, just about to bloom, Hajime makes out a flock of birds, firmly perched on their branches, eyeing the ace in something judging. _Go home,_ it seemsthey're saying to him. A truck driver, rolling down his window, yells for Hajime to get out of the street.

(He refrains from obscenities and takes this as a sign to just keep going. Sometimes Hajime wonders how he was born into such a strange town.)

"Tokyo, here I come," he keeps mouthing to himself down the path. "I will show Hosei I'm worth recruiting."

Hajime smells something burning in the air. The rumbles continue under each of his frantic steps, like a perpetual bout of pins and needles.

 _Go home,_ the birds still call from the trees. Hajime doesn't listen.

 

**_x_ **

 

_Dear obaasan and ojiichan,_

_Today, Iwa-chan is going to Tokyo to see some scouts at Hosei University. I tell myself I'm happy about it, and part of me really is because we'll both get to play at a college level, but I can't help but feel something strange at the pit of my stomach. I wonder if it's because I can't stop smelling fire in the air._  

_Anyway, would you wish him the best of luck for me? I would, but I'm still kind of mad over this dumb fight we had yesterday. It's not even worth mentioning, but I might just ignore him the whole time I'm saying bye to him at the station._

_(Well, on second thought, that might be kind of rude, huh?)_

- _Tooru_

 

**_x_ **

 

"Iwa-chan!" Oikawa calls from the edge of the platform, raising a hand and waving it through the air, much too excited for someone's who only saying goodbye. With a small wave of his own, Hajime hoists his suitcase up from the top of the stairs, goes right to the setter, and stares down the track. He thinks he might see its headlights from a point he can barely make out on the horizon, so he knows it's almost time to board soon; checking his watch, his assumptions are made correct when he sees the time—6:43PM. Almost time to go. At this, Oikawa just lets out a short huff of laughter and peers down the track, too.

"Are you in a rush to leave me, Iwa-chan?" he asks, smoothing his hair back against the station draft. 

Hajime rolls his eyes, finds his nerves just slightly lifted, and refuses to believe that Oikawa's the one to always calm them. Under their feet, the platform tremors with the promise of an oncoming train, but it is not close to making it to them yet. _Just breathe. Shake this feeling,_ Hajime thinks. Oikawa stares out uneasily, too.

"I haven't even been recruited for anything yet. Maybe you're the one who's chasing me out of town," Hajime says while making a small grab at Oikawa's nose, pinching it at the nostrils and letting go in the next instance.

Oikawa looks back down at the track. "Im telling you, Iwa-chan, I put a good word in for you at Tsukuba, and we can just play together. Just show them that amazing spike of yours."

"Like I'd want anything I didn't earn myself," Hajime quips back.

" _Just show them that amazing spike of yours,_ " Oikawa repeats himself with that stubborn smile of his, devious under that pleasant facade, _bravado lite_ mixed in skim milk and golden honey. Gross, but Hajime understands anyway.

"I'll be back soon," Hajime tries smiling. Down the track, the train sounds its horn, signaling its arrival.

"All right," Oikawa says with pursed lips. Like a petulant child, he takes Hajime's hands by the light grasp of his fingers, avoiding any sort of eye contact, still. "I forgive you for the pudding cup," he edges out, glancing over at him gingerly. "Just...come back soon, I guess." 

" _Needy_ kawa," Hajime jokes, just as the whirlwind of the train comes barreling into the station. They don't let go of each other's hands.

"I'm going home," Oikawa says in a false huff, beginning to saunter away when the doors open and the passengers rush out onto the platform and down the stairs. Just as the setter's about to let go, Hajime yanks him forward in a hug, rare but made anyway. Oikawa swings an arm around him too, leaning over on Hajime's shoulder.

"You get on the train, and I'll wait at the road crossing a few blocks down," Oikawa whispers.

"What? So you'll be the last thing I see before leaving town?" Hajime asks.

"Yep," Oikawa laughs back. "Don't you know, Iwa-chan? I am an indestructible good luck charm." With his proclamations, he parts from the hug, pats Hajime's shoulder, and gives a firm nod of the head. For a moment, because that's _all_ Oikawa does, save his sincerities for _moments_ and split seconds, Hajime thinks the setter is doing it for himself more than anything, a quiet reassurance of _'everything will be absolutely fine.'_ One foot in the car, Hajime wonders why feels the need to tell himself that, too, but shakes it off. He lets go of Oikawa's hand. 

"I'll be at the crossing, right next to the train. If you reach out the window, we may be able to touch by the fingertips," Oikawa muses. "Not that it's a big deal or anything." 

Hajime actually laughs. "I'll be moving too fast for that."

"We can always try."

"Sure, Oikawa. _Anything for you,"_ Hajime says. "Anyway, see you soon."

"See you soon." Oikawa leaves the platform before the train even starts moving. When Hajime takes a seat by the window in a near-empty car, he still feels the earth rumble under him. He blames it on the train engine. With a sigh, mind wrapped around all the things to come, like Tokyo and Hosei University, like Oikawa Tooru standing at the crossing, Hajime opens the window, lets in the smell of early summer, and still feels something sharp, like broken metal, in the air.

 

**_x_ **

 

 _Dear obaachan and ojiichan,_  

 _Would you say it’s impossible to really fall in love at my age? Are people like me allowed something like that?_  

_-Tooru_

 

**_x_ **

 

The train moves slowly enough for Hajime to see Oikawa at the railroad crossing, and for them to almost touch hands by the fingertips. Stifling the urge to yell at Oikawa for leaning too far over the lowered boom barrier, he misses his chance when the train starts to pick up speed. He makes out the blur of Oikawa's waving hand anyway, sees him lean over even more in that last instance, and feels his stomach drop in something terrible.

On the other side, an incoming train on the parallel track howls in something urgent. A train attendant lets his hat fly off when he runs up the aisle. Someone is yelling at him over his personal intercom. 

_“Please put the emergency breaks on all the Miyagi line trains, I REPEAT, put all the emergency breaks on—”_

A woman two rows up reaches out. "Is everything all right—"

The rumbling under Hajime rises in a horrible, half-tempo crescendo. Just when it feels like Hajime’s seat is about to rip off the ground, the attendant screams for everyone to hold on to something. Hajime feels something slam into the other side of train, a giant's momentum forcing him to lean out the window, his bag flying out of the carry-on with all the others. _We're tipping,_ Hajime thinks, oddly calm, _this train is going to tip over._ On the other side, the metal body of the parallel train just forces itself more on his car. A second tremor, bellowing up in something deafening, jolts the train, seemingly, right off its tracks. Out the window, he watches the tail-end of the train run off like a whip altogether, sparks flying in trying to stay on course. Almost blinded, leaning so far out of his car he might just fall out completely, Hajime watches as that last peek of Oikawa faces the beast and the shaken earth below him, and just how easily he’s crushed before both titans.

“Tooru!” Hajime screams until his throat is raw. _“Tooru!”_

The last thing Hajime sees before getting thrown back is the sunset, almost finished, over the wreckage. Smoke billows up, black and already mourning, but the birds rise up from their trees anyway, avoid the trouble, and go on in a gliding _‘I told you so.’_

 

**_x_ **

 

_“Iwa-chan.”_

Hajime knows he’s dying. Under the wreckage, with an upper half’s worth of air and the outside, no one’s found him yet, and no crews have come to retrieve potential survivors. He can tell there are still aftershocks, _big ones_ , from the way the ground shakes against his heaving chest, and they might not end for awhile. Coughing up and half-dead, Hajime wonders if he could just have the rest of the car crush him. He reaches out, finds he doesn’t even have the energy for that, and knocks his head against the ground so his sixth death might come sooner. Half-sobbing, he ignores the sound of his ringing phone and the other whimpers around him. Hajime shakes off the sound of an imaginary Oikawa, yelling out his name.

_“Iwa-chan!”_

“Fuck,” Hajime curses out, “you fucking didn’t.” He’s not imagining things. He knows he isn’t when he sees black, scuffed up dress shoes hit the ground in front of him. Oikawa, still out of breath, _still in his mourning suit_ , kneels down and tries to pull Hajime out, not another word to him. When he finds he can’t, Hajime just shakes Oikawa off altogether and raises his head off the dirt. Under them, another aftershock uproots the wreckage, finding new ways to press into Hajime, lifting the earth and presenting him for death. Oikawa grasps on to his hand anyway, getting blood on the other when the sharp edge of metal rips into his palm; at this, he still keeps digging, hands ruined, knees scuffed by dirt and grime and broken glass.

“Go,” Hajime urges. “It’s not safe here.”

“I have to get you out, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa says. “I can’t let you—”

“You’ve already died once here! _Fucking go_ ,” Hajime coughs up blood, knows he’s on the edge, and sees sparks fly up in his eyes again. Out of his temporary blindness, how it comes and goes and _comes and goes,_ he glances over at Oikawa’s hands again—his beautiful, _lithe_ hands, now ruined for what they do best, for setting and spiking and serving—and shakes his head, gasping out the sobs. _You can’t be here._ _Your hands are not meant for this. Go back to your open field and hide there. Go toss a ball while you wait for me. Because you can’t be here, you can’t be here, you can’t be here—_

“Tooru,” Hajime burns through the remaining air in his system to say. “Tooru, please.”

“I can’t let you die again! I always have to see you like this, and I hate it!” Oikawa cries out, trying to yank Hajime out again, tumbling back in something broken and breathless when he fails again. 

_You are not made for this. You deserve better than this. The world cannot contain how hard you try._

“Tooru,” Hajime tries again. “Tooru, it’s okay. Please,” he starts, softer. “I’ll be back before you know it.”

Oikawa gets up again, tries again, _fails again_.

“Hajime,” Oikawa calls out on his knees. “You have to come back with me. You have to.” He comes closer, hands torn open by scrap metal and glass, and leans into the top of Hajime’s head. “You have to.”

“I’m sorry.”

_“Hajime!”_

Close to his chest, like a heart’s last ditch effort to stay alive, the ground shakes below Hajime in another earthquake. It is the last thing he feels, takes in for the early summer, before feeling a heaviness uproot and fall on top of him. A telephone pole, he thinks. He holds Oikawa’s hand through it, in all blindness and something unforgivably deaf, until both of them lose their grip on each other in their respective deaths.

 

**_x_ **

 

_Dear obaachan and ojiichan,_

_Well, after much thinking, I’ve decided._

_No—actually, it’s more like I've felt it all along._

_I really do love Iwa-chan, and for him, I feel like I could move mountains._  

_-Tooru_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't expect this chapter to hit 16,000 words, but here we are ;_; I really wanted to explore Oikawa and Hajime's try at a budding relationship, the matter of different lifespans, and Oikawa's continuing growth out of his insecurities. (Because in canon, I really do think he's developed well since his middle school days.) This was my first time writing anything like an earthquake and a train accident (all in one go!) so that was...a ride. (not literally, of course.)
> 
> The next chapter will be the last part, covering the remaining bit of their last year at Aoba Johsai and their post-canon, college lives.
> 
> As usual, please find me on @levkens on twitter or companions.tumblr.com!


	4. twenty things

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the next chapter! I had to extend it to a six-parter because there's no way I could fit everything I wanted in just four parts, it seems. (Why does this always happen to me?) 
> 
> Anyway, recommended listening: I actually made an 8tracks mix for this fic, which you can check out [here!](http://8tracks.com/cavalcade/thunder-and-lightning)

 

> _"Everyday is a journey, and the journey itself is home." -_ Bashō _,_ _Oku no Hosomichi_

 

When Hajime enters the void for his sixth death, he feels the warmth of someone’s hand in his, light in touch but palatial in sensation. For the water he likes to float through, or the skies he’s usually looking up to, he finds no need to conjure up such distractions anymore, feels no need to search for his setter's voice in read letters; because by some blessing, a blink's worth in the eyes of the warring gods, Hajime gets to have Oikawa here this time around. 

"Where do you want to go today, Iwa-chan?" Oikawa asks, closing his eyes and squeezing his hand harder.

Squirming from the warmth in his palms, because warmth in the face of the void’s perpetual nothingness just feels like a bright and blazing sun, Hajime just lies back, imagines a bed of plush grass beneath them, and sighs about it. He looks towards his best friend, finding translucence, the phantom of Oikawa Tooru still nothing but smiles anyway. 

When Hajime reaches to tap him on the cheek, it feels like brushing against porcelain, a second’s worth of the barest feeling. A peculiar warmth follows, shooting up Hajime’s arm like a pyrotechnic dream, almost realized, rumbling his entire body like fireworks in late July. He takes it in again, forgets Oikawa’s question, and tries to think of the other world, of things like fireworks and lightning and lives lost. Hajime realizes it still aches, even if they’re supposed to be far removed from it.

Oikawa asks again. “Where do you want to go today, Iwa-chan?” Persistence is something he never lacks.

Hajime still doesn’t answer, not only because they don’t _actually_ get to go anywhere in the void, but because he’s mad, still _really, really_ mad about Oikawa having to die twice. He blames everything and everyone under the sun—the gods, the overturned trains, the earth’s sad excuse for tectonic plates, boom barriers that line up too close to the fucking tracks, Oikawa Tooru, _himself_ —and fails to string the words together. _I'm mad. I'm disappointed. How could this happen?_ He finds that’s it a lot more difficult in places like the void, where the constant call for serenity tells to him to forget. _Feel the embrace of your heaven to come, away from earthly attachments!_ What bullshit. Hajime doesn’t want to forget, because every single one of Oikawa’s lives are important to him, and he’s just lost two to start the summer.

“I don’t want to do anything with you until you tell me why,” _why you felt the need to come back for me._ Hajime’s already answered this way, it seems, a million times. At this, Oikawa just lowers his eyes, offers that veil of nonchalance again, and plucks at a few imagined strands of grass from the ground.

“I’m sorry, I don’t what you mean,” Oikawa muses. “I’m telling you, Iwa-chan, this place is _really_ muddling with my senses, and I think it’s best that we just leave all serious inquiries for some other time.”

"But you know what I mean." Hajime grips onto Oikawa’s hand tighter. Fireworks burst up again, but this time it feels like Hajime is standing much too close to the sparks, and he feels the heat snap vehemently across his face.

"Hm? Sorry, the wind tunnels are really loud on my side of things. Could you speak up?" Oikawa asks innocently.

Hajime huffs out a sigh. “If I wasn’t so tired, I’d come over there and flick some sense into you.” At this, Oikawa just laughs softly, because he knows he’s won. For all the fire left from his twentieth life, one still shouting, _‘why did you die have to twice?’_ over and over and over, his lips fall languid in trying to say anything about the matter, still partly enraptured by the prospect of not talking at all. Hajime lets himself be tired. He wonders how badly he was ruined in wreckage back home, how much time it'll take the two of them to come back, if summer training camp will carry on, if they'll have _Harukou_ as scheduled. He sits up on the grass he's imagined, feels every bone of his ache and crack when he tries to move too much, but he still finds the strength to look ahead anyway. Hajime would stand, just get up altogether and run across the void’s dreary surface, but he has a feeling that if he lets go of Oikawa's hand, their connection in this place will be severed.

"I want to go back," he tells Oikawa, facing him. "I want to go back and practice and win, and I'm sure you feel the same." 

The promise of a blue sky—and not just _any_ blue, but _Miyagi's summer blue,_ the kind Hajime sees during public park birthday parties and foot races along the hillside—reflects vaguely in Oikawa's wide set eyes, like brightly polished mahogany left to set in the sun. It would, and it should, because every inch of that world belongs to Oikawa, too. In that instant, Hajime knows that every inch of Oikawa wants to go back to it, but all he gets for an answer is the uncomfortable furl of his lips, halfway between a smile and something about to fall apart. Altogether, Oikawa just reigns it back into something pleasantly forced and stares back up at the actual nothingness above them; when Hajime looks too, it just reminds him of the paper-white expanse he’d see at home. It is the sort of sky that won’t even promise rain _._ He resolves that the void is something like this, past the imaginary water, the feigned bed of grass. It is the empty pang of purgatory. It is not the clear blue summer of the world back home. 

“Iwa-chan, do you want to hear an idea I came up with?" Oikawa asks, after their spurt of silence. "I thought of it the last time you stayed a week here."

Hajime isn't sure he likes the sound of this, but he doesn't interrupt Oikawa. He just nods, and at this, Oikawa scans for the right things to say, places to start.

"Well, I know we age regularly here, like, if we stayed here a year, we'd be a year older when we got back."

"Yeah, I think that's right," Hajime tells him. He never dwells too much on the mechanics of resurrection. 

"And the world moves right along too," Oikawa muses. "Like, I think you once told me, I guess it was like a couple of years ago, that it was like ripping the ear buds out during a song, and then plugging them back to find that the sound's moved on without you. Chorus right to the second verse."

Hajime can't help but scoff. "I don't think I was ever that poetic about things, but sure."

“Well, I wondered...what if we just waited a couple of years here?” Oikawa asks with an exhale, preening up to see past the paper grey sky. “Like, when we get out, we’d both already be Olympic stars. They’ll give us our gold medals right then and there,” he says with a laugh. In his eyes, that reflection of clear blue leaves in favor of the glimmer he’s just made, and Hajime thinks it’s like seeing him back in Miyagi, pressed against the precipice of something new, scared but willing—and _god_ , _he was always so scared,_ Hajime remembers for every single time, of the own stars in his eyes.

“We can just skip all the hard stuff, don’t you think, Iwa-chan?” Their time in the void might not be an exception.

Hajime looks over at him. “We can’t, Oikawa,” he tells him without scolding him this time. The lump in his voice keeps him from being gruff.

Because for all the strength Oikawa has gained over the years, stifled to splendid, Hajime understands that everyone gets scared. _Hell_ , maybe that fear never really goes away, because Hajime knows he feels it, too—with every change, every charge into the unknown. But again, like all the other tectonic shifts in their lives, like six turning into four, the potential distance between Tsukuba to Hosei, and everything in between, Hajime thinks about how little he wants to run from any of it. It is fine to be scared. _Scared is natural._ Running, for him, is not.

“And I know you don’t want to stay here. _I know you don’t mean it,_ because we’re not going to do the things we want to do, if we just lie here,” Hajime says. He finds himself rising from the grass, hand still held onto Oikawa’s. For a moment, it feels like he’s lifting someone from the buried earth. That is because Oikawa doesn’t follow at first. He stays, right on the ground, but he raises his head in something halfway there.

“Iwa-chan.” Oikawa sounds about five again. It is a childish and ugly call at times, light and defenseless, but one that Hajime will beckon to every time.

With a small click of his tongue, Hajime crouches back down slowly and raises Oikawa’s hand in his. He brushes a thumb against the back of his palm, huffs a sigh against it, and hides a smile, one that he hopes Oikawa won’t notice. But of course, because it’s Oikawa, who notices everything about Hajime in the way Hajime notices him too, he sees right through it right away. At this, the setter just sits up more, brings himself closer to his ace, and tears down his own hand like a wall waiting to be torn down.

"We have to keep working hard, don't we?" Oikawa asks. 

"Of course." 

"No regrets?"

Hajime has to be honest with himself. " _Well_ , as little as possible."

Without another word, Oikawa leans in. With shaking hands still held, their first kiss in the void is barely one at all, but Hajime takes in his best friend like he’s got a whole goddamned supernova to breathe in. He thinks its like lightning striking twice, _a billion times,_ like fireworks popping up, light years into the sky—but Hajime thinks they might be able to do better than that. They’ve got a whole world back at home, after all. It is there for the taking.

When they separate, they still keep their faces close; Hajime takes this time to wipe away a tear, hidden behind the sweep of Oikawa’s eyelashes, but he knows the other boy’s already made up his mind. 

“Let’s go back, Tooru,” Hajime whispers. 

“Okay,” Oikawa laughs out, trying not to cry. “But you better not scold me about dying twice when we get back.”

“Well, why did you let that happen anyway?” Hajime asks, a little lighter than before. “Six to four?”

Oikawa frowns. “Do I really have to spell it out for you, Iwa-chan?”

At the question, Hajime just raises his other hand to flick Oikawa once on the forehead, but he just kisses him there instead. For a moment, he thinks the void has made him soft, but he knows, deep down, that maybe he really doesn’t need things put into words, after all. Maybe he doesn’t have to remember to get mad about Oikawa Tooru’s two lost lives.

“So—where do you want to go when we get back, _four_ kawa?”

With a smile, Hajime resolves to live on, hands held, touches filled with more than the possibility of sensation, and comes flying back into Miyagi with his setter following right behind.

 

**_x_ **

 

When Hajime returns to Miyagi, the soil still smells fresh from the earthquake, and his world looks only half toppled-over. He notices a few shingles at his feet from his grandmother's abandoned house, the bamboo fence posts knocked over, but he observes how the birdhouse has stayed intact through it all, content to swing on the clothesline. Hajime pads the bottom of it softly and steps right out of the yard, down the empty streets with dress shoes clicking against the pavement. It doesn't take him long—after a tearful hug from his mother, a brief apology from his father, and a few worried phone calls from cousins—to find his bearings in a new pair of sneakers, and he's almost too quick in flying out the door again. Sweat forming on his nose— _ah, what a sign of life,_ Hajime thinks, while wiping it off—he waits until Oikawa comes out to join him, fully dressed with a volleyball perched under his arm, to boot.

"Why are you bringing a volleyball with you? They'll have plenty at the gym."

"I know, but I guess I just like the feeling of carrying one with me, anyway." 

When they make it to their high school half an hour later, they are relieved that the Seijou gym is still standing, save for the fallen plaster and and a few fallen topiaries. Matsukawa and Hanamaki ask about the train accident, hear the rest of the team gasp when they hear the details from Oikawa, ( _"you just absolutely_ had _to see it, my friends, the earth was moving like the sea under me! The train stood no chance! And neither did us!")_ about his six becoming four—at this, the gym descends into an eerie quiet, awkward with tension. Oikawa falls into it too for a moment, but chooses to remain obstinately pleasant about things, while Hajime doesn't feel it at all. He is only here for the new day. At this, Hajime rolls the remaining goosebumps off his back, bouncing the volleyball in his stead, and tells everyone to get to work.

"Come on! _Look sharp_! Don't just stand there!"

His howls resound through the gym and his spikes have never looked better, and he swears he's never liked the raw throat or the burning palms better. The coaches joke that Hajime has enough spirit to be both the captain and the vice today, much to Oikawa's chagrin, who's been quietly working on his jump serves all practice. He dials it up after that, Hajime notices, with the extra work he puts in with the first year teammates.

_"How was that toss, Kindaichi? Little low? Don't be afraid to speak up!"_

_"Kunimi, please put a little more gusto into your blocks. It's just two extra seconds of effort, I promise you!"_

_"Mad-dog-chan, stop staring down at Iwa-chan so much! You lost that arm-wrestling match fair and square!"_

After practice, the coach pulls Hajime aside, who's excited to get home with Oikawa for dinner, homework, and a viewing of the _Summer Stars Tikachu Special_ (to which they won't probably finish, in lieu of other things.) Hajime makes the time anyway, because he figured that that's what third year vice captains do.

"Yes, coach?" he says, running right over.

"Hosei is deeply sorry that you had to lose a life on your way to see them," the coach tells him. "And because they _insist_ that still want to see you in action, a scout will be here for our next practice match. _So_ , this is just fair warning for you to be as spirited as you were today, Iwaizumi-kun." 

Hajime nods with a slight frown. "Oh, of course!" He bows. "Thank you, I'll be sure to work hard." 

"Good," the coach says. "I don't expect any less from you."

And when Hajime goes back to Oikawa, he knows he's heard everything. The captain just smiles, lets his hand crawl down Hajime's arm, and lets their hands be held. Blatantly, they walk home like this together, because even the long summer days feel too short to care otherwise, but Hajime thinks he might be thankful for this one anyway. Oikawa even makes fun of him for swinging their arms between them, like he's in the third grade and getting a new pair of knee pads for his birthday, but Hajime doesn't listen to his taunts. He's just glad to be back in this world, with games to be played, scouts to impress, and hands to be held, swinging all the way home.

 

**_x_ **

 

"Hey, Iwa-chan, are you really sleeping over tonight?"

"Yeah, I told my mom I would be. Why do you always ask when you already know the answer?"

"Hm, well today, I really am making sure." 

"Oh? Why's that?" 

"Iwa-chan, don't you know what today is?"

 

**_x_ **

 

Oikawa slides the pudding cup closer to Hajime at the other side of the table and leans over to stick a single candle in it. He strikes the match, precariously keeping pinched fingers over the flame in case it gets too big; but it doesn’t, so Oikawa waves his hand away, smile weary from a day of practicing so much. With a grin of his own, perhaps the slightest bit bashful, Hajime looks away and takes note of the storm outside, the rattle of rain on his windowsill, and thinks about how he used to hate rain on his birthdays. He blinks in understanding, decides that storms aren't such a bad thing in the long run, and tells himself he must be growing up after all. _Hello, eighteen._ With a nothing but the candle lighting the bedroom, Hajime claps his hands together to make his wish, changes it in the last second, and hopes it goes through with the extinguished flame.

_(Oh, how I’d like to be with you, Oikawa Tooru.)_

"Happy birthday, Iwa-chan," Oikawa tells him, voice almost lost under the downpour. It is quiet, somehow severe, and this only unnerves Hajime to no end. The tension rises around them, still humid despite the release of rain, but Hajime does not sense this as a bad thing this time around. This is the sort of pressure he likes, one that winds up his chest, knotting and churning, before matches and the biggest moments. _Here comes the fireworks again_ , he thinks, except in the way they gasp when they hit Hajime's nerve endings, the way they tell Hajime to just reach out and pull the other boy close.

( _Oh, how I’d like to touch you, Oikawa Tooru.)_

"I can't believe I forgot that was today," he says to Oikawa instead, with another glance out the window, stifling the heat in his face. Only catching the lightning in the corner of his eye, because lightning is more often known to do that, he hears the thunder sound voraciously right after, hungry to vibrate across the sky. Oikawa's shoulders perk up from the sound of it, mouth running slightly agape before mashing his lips closed altogether.

_(Oh, how I'd like to kiss you, Oikawa Tooru.)_

“Say, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa calls after him, bringing Hajime out of his lull. “Can you answer a question for me?”

“Yea, what is it?” 

Oikawa pushes the floor table aside and lets Hajime come closer, millimeter-by-millimeter. The draw is so innate that Hajime doesn’t even know it’s happening at first—it is magnetic, gravitational, and everything in between, like static cling brought on by years of feigned friction, supreme closeness.  "Why do things always happen on June tenth?" Oikawa then asks, just as Hajime’s near enough to kiss him, tips of their noses touching. Oikawa's breath smells like the faint hint of caramel flan pudding. 

“Are you saying my birthday is cursed?” Hajime asks. 

“It’s more than just your birthday, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa quips. “Don’t you remember?” 

“No?” 

“ _Iwa-chan._ How can you forget something so important?”

“Well, remind me, then, if it’s something I should remember,” Hajime tells him, sweeping to Oikawa’s side to whisper in his ear. He feels Oikawa shiver under the weight of him, two silly boys on the floor of a room they’ve known forever, pressed against the frame of a bed they should be on already. So Hajime, _presumptuous as ever,_ leads Oikawa by the hand onto the blankets, seeking refuge under them.

“ _Can I kiss you, Iwa-chan?_ ” Oikawa asks, just as the lightning flashes again. He follows Hajime under the covers to escape the following thunder.

“Yeah, just do it already. Why are you asking?” 

“You really _are_ dense sometimes, Iwa-chan.”

“Are you trying to start a fight?” Hajime asks this time, bemused. He flicks Oikawa on the forehead but the setter does not relent; he stares up, wide-eyed, light brown illuminated in the faint amber of the streetlight glow outside. They are almost as cloudy as the storms outside, hazy with something vaguely upset, or at least, a squint of resistance that’s trying not to be. At this, Hajime sucks in the urge to sigh and kisses Oikawa himself. ‘ _It’s my birthday,’_ Hajime thinks, just as Oikawa reciprocates, building up into a full press of the lips, ‘ _so_ _don’t you dare be upset.’_

But when they separate, Oikawa just pushes his head to the side. “ _June tenth_?” he asks Hajime again, in some semblance of a last chance. _Last chance, Hajime, before you upset the boyfri—_ god, no. "You _really_ don’t know?" Oikawa continues." I can't believe you'd forget this." He looks up at Hajime next and pats him lightly on the cheek in reprimanding.

A memory flashes across Hajime’s hazy head, and at this he blames the void for not remembering sooner. There's the high-hanging birdhouse, _Sixkawa_ , and his admissions. His _I like you,_ without saying so. Hajime pictures Oikawa falling down the stone stairs. He feels that _first kiss_ all over again _._ Hajime really _does_ feel the embarrassment build up in his chest by now, because he is not one to make a fuss over birthdays or things like anniversaries, especially ones for _dating,_ of all things, and it hits him that he's sharing this day with Oikawa Tooru. _High flying, secretly sentimental Oikawa Tooru, who probably ingrains these moments the second they happen._ Hajime feels compelled to just kiss him about this, partly in apology for forgetting the occasion, partly because he just wants to kiss the living _daylights_ out of him, so he sweeps in towards Oikawa, eyes peering softly at his side. Hajime keeps silent in thinking, sifting through the words, his excuses for forgetting, finding none.

"I'm sorry," Hajime says in earnest instead. At this, Oikawa just rolls his eyes and kisses him first, tender and hesitant before abandoning false modesty. Hajime follows and breathes him in, all in staggered motions, and lets the proceeding crash between them happen in slow and subtle motions. 

 _Oh, how I’d like to kiss you, Oikawa Tooru. Oh, how I’d like to touch you, Oikawa Tooru. Oh, how I’d like to be with you, Oikawa Tooru._ The beat of this plays on and on. Outside, the storm looms, but the rumble of it sounds further and further by the minute. Their shirts rise from the impatient drag of fingers, and Hajime can’t help feel the difference in how they carry these things out, like harshness meeting the gentle lull of harmony. Because when Hajime grabs onto Oikawa’s favorite _lounging-around_ tee, light blue and well worn, he is almost too hasty in pulling it up off his back, too hasty to feel his best friend in bareness. Repeatedly he has to tell himself, _slow down, slow down, slow down,_ but it's hard to when he has Oikawa like this.

_“Hajime.”_

Oikawa, on the other hand, is as discerning here as he is on court, perceptive about the way he touches Hajime by the pinch of cloth hem, the way he whispers _"Hajime"_ in his ear, like the call for a more intimate toss. Hajime sighs at the way Oikawa winds those fingers of his back down his heated back, the light and teasing scratches he leaves behind. _"Hajime,"_ Oikawa calls again, and Hajime just unfurls in the worst way, because he really does feel like he's growing up in the midst of things. _Hello, eighteen._ _Hello, Tooru._ Hajime doesn't know how to put the sensation into words, this pressure, building skyscrapers and jutting through his chest. This pressure to keep going, to please, to pretend he isn't going to fall the fuck apart from just being here. _Hello, eighteen._ Oikawa calls him _"Hajime"_ again. 

_Hello, Tooru._

Overwhelmed. That might be the word for it, and this is the last thing Hajime usually wants to feel like, because he isn’t the type to get _overwhelmed_ , because he doesn’t crumble, and he might bend but he’ll never, _ever_ break. But he thinks that this is one of the few times he’ll let himself do that, because Oikawa might do the same, and they should go together. 

 _“Tooru.”_ The last of their clothes come off. Hajime nearly tears the fabric of Oikawa’s boxers. Oikawa is careful with the buttons on Hajime’s dress shirt. Along the winding path of skin, Hajime’s hands continue to graze over in a stampede of roaming fingers, and Oikawa isn’t pretending or holding back when he asks him for more, almost unheard under the rain but found, like always.

And when they have sex, it is not a raucous affair, but something almost in-tune, slow and still seeking for the right way to please and _take in_ and cherish. _They’re always trying to get better and better,_ because that’s what the two of them have always amounted to—the next day, the _new_ day, and Hajime thinks he’ll never stop finding ways to reach those heights. And when he sees Oikawa in various shades throughout the night—dug in against the plush of a pillow on the ground of sheets, or above him, doing the digging in himself—Hajime knows, with that glint in his eyes, harried but persistent, that his setter feels the same.

 _“Iwa-chan, can I kiss you?”_ Oikawa asks after, when they’re finished and tired and on the verge of sleep.

Hajime doesn’t answer. It is hot and he's sticky and his mouth is still dry from all the kissing. He just stares at the alarm clock on Oikawa’s desk instead, sees how it blinks 11:59PM on the console, and asks for a wish under the dissipating rain. It is small, nothing but a breath to the gods above, but as Hajime goes in to kiss Oikawa, slow and sacred with cracked lips, he insists that they listen anyway. 

He whispers it out loud again once Oikawa’s the one to fall asleep first, under the dissipating rain. ‘ _Oh, how I’d like to stay with you always, Oikawa Tooru,’_ he says, carding through the waves of his sweat-seeped hair, repeating it like a secret, senseless song. 

_(Oh, how I'd like to keep you forever.)_

 

**_x_ **

 

During the night, Hajime dreams about writing letters.

 

**_x_ **

 

In the morning, when they’re both sore and Hajime insists on throwing Oikawa’s blaring alarm clock out the window, the latter comes back in the room and whips the covers off of him, much too exuberant for the likes of the morning. Quickly flicking the alarm off, _actually giggling_ of all things, Hajime feels Oikawa lower himself on his back to sneak a flash’s kiss right on his chin, mashing a small box against his cheek and whispering _“happy belated.”_

Stifling the urge to answer with, _“for fuck’s sake, just let me sleep a little more,”_ Hajime rises to the sound of a clapping lid, squints his eyes open, and ends up swatting the air when he misses in smacking Oikawa. ' _What the fuck is he doing with a box like that?'_ he asks himself, still drowsy to no end. _'Is he going to propose? Are we getting married?'_ Hajime shakes his head and convinces himself he's still dreaming. _'Like I'd fucking marry this kid. Not in a million years.'_  

“ _I-wa-chan._ ” Oikawa sits back up and pinches Hajime’s ear lightly. “Get up! I have a birthday present for you.”

“My birthday was yesterday,” Hajime groans into the pillow as he rolls onto his stomach, letting the plush of it be his reprieve, “so save it for next year and leave me in _peace_.”

“ _Iwa-chan_! You are really such a grouch in the mornings!” When Oikawa begins to knead his back like dough, Hajime raises a languid hand to wave him away, wordless save for the scratchy whines that come up humming against his sore throat. He feels Oikawa's hand wrap around his sleep-worn wrist, the feeling of a bracelet slide past the folded heart of his palm, and this, more than the sound of dreamed-up wedding bells, or the incessant calls of _Iwa-chan,_ stirs Hajime out of sleep. He blinks at the braided leather, tied and thicker than the usual mourning bracelet, and waits for Oikawa to explain himself. Because of all of the things he's ever given Hajime as gifts—a half-finished alien coloring book, a DVD on _Spike_ the magical volleyball dog, a boar bristle hair brush for _luminous locks,_ front row tickets to see the Rakuten Eagles play a home game, _his first freaking kiss_ , of all things—Oikawa has never gone with something so simple.

"Oikawa," Hajime sits up and examines the gift with a twist of his wrist. "This is...one of _those_. Do you have something to tell me?"

Oikawa's eyes go wide and he shakes his head immediately. "No, Iwa-chan, this isn't a mourning bracelet! It's just something I meant to give you on your birthday last year, but as you may know, I was too terribly distracted by _someone_ giving me my first kiss, so I never got the chance to." Untying the knot and rebinding it once more, Oikawa smiles fondly, summer morning personified, and looks satisfied with himself this time. "It's kind of cheesy, isn't it? Considering all the cool stuff I've given you over the years?" 

"You once gave me a coloring book where you colored all the humans blue." 

"They were aliens in _disguise_ , Iwa-chan. You just couldn't see that."

"It's... _nice_ ," Hajime admits, swallowing down the urge to get sentimental, but it always rises back up, anyway. It always does. He just guesses it comes with the territory. 

"Is that all you can say, Iwa-chan? _Nice_?" he asks, in his usual theatrics. "I'm hurt."

"You know what I mean," Hajime says with the click of his tongue. "Actually," he starts, softening with his own realizations, "it would be a gift you might give me."

"Oh?" Oikawa asks, lie down again. He's obviously intrigued. "How so?"

At the question, Hajime takes the time to rub the fringes against the pads of his fingers, inspecting the eased elastic of worn leather. The underbelly of it is fuzzy, soft like terry cloth, while the other, _the outer,_ feels smooth, as it should be. When he traces the ridges of the elegant braid, two threads bound together to make something strong, he thinks he might never need another mourning bracelet again.

"I don't know," Hajime finally answers him. "It's like asking if I need a reason to like something." Peering up at Oikawa, Hajime watches the way his face lights up, how he tries to hide it with the pull of wrinkled sheets. 

"So you do like it, then?" Oikawa asks. 

Hajime shrugs, takes the initiative in wrapping a hand around Oikawa's wrist, and sighs before kissing him.

"Maybe I do, and maybe I don't," Hajime answers him with mischief and a smirk to match. Oikawa absolutely scowls at his answer, turns away from him in bed, and pretends to sulk. In turn, Hajime just rolls his eyes, wraps his arms around his waist, and presses another kiss against a hickey-stained neck. "I do," Hajime relents, soft because he should really learn to be kinder in instances like this, and says it again. _"I really do,"_ he says in another half-apology, which riles Oikawa up in the worst shivers. _"I really, really do,"_ he tells him, because he's thankful for the likes of Oikawa Tooru and there's no way to get around it. 

(At this, Oikawa holds Hajime's hand almost the entire time they have sex again that morning, fingers clinging to soft leather and the unbreakable braid.)

 

**_x_ **

 

A week after Hajime’s eighteenth birthday, a Hosei University scout arrives in the Seijou stands, donning a hideous orange baseball cap, a track jacket zipped up right to his chin, and a frown that says everything other than, _‘I’m so glad to be here.’_ Hajime gulps down the lump in his throat, but he doesn't blame him; transportation lines to and from the prefecture have still been pretty _god awful,_ and he imagines the hassle it was to get here. With a light bow towards the stands, Hajime turns and watches how Oikawa’s watching him too, and tells him, with budding nerves, _to stop staring so goddamned much_. Oikawa relents, if only to give Hajime the best toss he's seen all afternoon. Hajime leaps right at the point he's known for years, about thirty or so centimeters off the net, and raises his arm for the attack.

When he slams it down center court, off an unwitting libero from the Seijou alumni association, the scout lifts his chin from his collar and offers a nod of approval. Hajime swallows down his excitements about it and looks to Oikawa, who just offers a pleasant little facade of a smile. With a whisper, Matsukawa comments that Oikawa looks even more honed in that usual, especially for the likes of a practice match, something that Hajime's already taken notice of, too. He flinches when Oikawa smashes one of his jump serves down, right before the out-of-bounds line and sorely untouched by the other team.

"Oikawa-kun! Iwaizumi-kun!"

After practice, Hajime and Oikawa get called aside by the coaches. The scout formally introduces himself as a recruiter from Hosei, hands the two of them brochures for their sports program, gives them formal invitations to join the team in Tokyo by the way of his ugly orange branded baseball cap, and leaves without another word. The coaches follow after him to talk about the upcoming _Harukou_ , to which Hajime and Oikawa remain, alone, to ponder in the gym. 

"I got scouted," Hajime says, bringing his nose to top button of the hat. "Fuck, _I got scouted_." He bites down on his lip to stop himself from yelling in the gym, but it’s almost too hard not to. With a hum, Oikawa takes the cap from Hajime, puts it on himself, and looks ahead.

“And we’ll be able to play together,” Oikawa says offhandedly. “Though I’m not a fan of the orange.” 

“What?” 

“As soon as I make that phone call to Hosei admissions, I’ll be able to play with you.”

Hajime frowns, finds himself shaking his head. “But there’s Tsukuba. Didn’t you already accept? You even told me, _oh, I’ll get the scouts there to look at you_.” 

“I guess I led them on a little, didn’t I?” Oikawa asks with a shrug, plastering that smile back on his face before turning it into something real. “I mean, you said you wanted to get in somewhere with your own merit, right? So I decided to show my own to the scout today, too. I’m just glad he liked me.” At this, he gets closer to Hajime and whispers, devilishly, “so, I guess I’ll be in your care another four years.”

With a squeak of his shoes on the hardwood, Hajime swipes the bill of the baseball cap off Oikawa’s head and takes it back into his own hands. Oikawa has _got_ to be kidding about this. “Tsukuba doesn’t just recruit anyone,” Hajime tells him. “Hosei might be a powerhouse in their own right, but they don’t compare to _Tsukuba_. You said it yourself, didn’t you? When you got scouted? They’re dominated since the nineties, or whatever. You said it’d be a _crime_ , if you didn’t go.”

“Well, lock me up, then.”

 “ _Oikawa._ It’s Tsukuba. I’m not going to let you—” 

“Isn’t that the same thing people said about me and Shiratorizawa, though?” Oikawa interrupts, sauntering around the gym, his way of relieving all the extra energy he just never seems to run out of. He doesn’t even look at Hajime in the eye.

"This is different, though. If one of us has a real shot of getting somewhere with this, Tsukuba's the best choice. I can't just watch you _not_ take it."

" _Shi-ra-to-ri-za-wa_ ," Oikawa emphasizes with every stress of the syllable.

"Please don't play games with me on this, Oikawa."

"I'm not, though. You're not aware of this, Iwa-chan, but I got asked the same question just before coming to high school. I even complained about it a couple of times to you, buuut you just never paid much attention, I guess."

Hajime _hates it—absolutely hates it—_ when Oikawa accuses him of such a fucking thing, because they both know they've paid _too_ much attention to each other to last several lifetimes. Of course Hajime would remember the great Shiratorizawa debacle. The coaches at Kitagawa Daiichi would never shut up about it, and Oikawa probably despised any utterance of _'well, if you can't beat 'em, just join them.'_ Hajime hated it all back then, too. So of course he was paying attention. Of course he'd remember the day Ushiwaka came up to him and asked, _"will you come play for me at Shiratorizawa?"_

That's why Hajime's so sure this is different. They aren't children fumbling over high schools to pick, fretting over the merit of plaid dress pants and stiff white blazers. Hell, even Tsukuba University's official motto amounts to something like, _"imagine the future,"_ which seems like a sign in itself to take things seriously.

"So, do you remember, Iwa-chan?" 

Hajime scowls deeply. "Why not Shiratorizawa? Why not Ushiwaka?" he mimics the doubters ever so slightly, rolling his eyes. _Hello, eighteen. Way to be childish about things._

“Why Aoba Johsai, when the _predestined ace_ of _the best team in the prefecture_ wants you to play for him?” Oikawa continues for him. At the question, he scoffs, throws his head to the ceiling, like that's all Shiratorizawa was able to offer him, _just a ceiling_ , not even the right kind, and Hajime reminds himself that Oikawa won't stop for a home with no heart. 

Hajime reaches out a hand for Oikawa to take, the both of them alone in the gym, the night taking hold outside. Through the thin walls, he hears the crickets chirp, much in the same way the day Oikawa told him, _"you know, I think I want to go to Seijou."_

It was the same day when Hajime decided, _"you know, I think I'll go there, too."_

This year, Hajime decides he can't possibly say the same. He gulps down the urge to tell Oikawa it's okay to come to Hosei, too, but he can't make himself make the push for Tsukuba, either. It only gets harder when Oikawa takes his hand right back, squeezes it in the softest part of his palm, reminding Hajime of the time he did the same after their last day at the Kitagawa Daiichi VBC. Flashes of a younger summer crop up again, but Hajime is not one to give into the memory of things long gone.

"Promise me you'll think it over?" Hajime asks him instead. "We have until the end of _Harukou_ to decide where we're going, and I won't be happy if you rush things."

At the proposal, Oikawa just nods right back, shakes Hajime's hand lightly, fingers grazing over the braided bracelet, and seals the pact with a barely-there kiss on the cheek.

"I promise you this, Iwa-chan," he whispers, "but you might be disappointed in my answer either way."

Hajime sighs, yanks an arm around the setter for a hug, and settles the dread forming in his stomach. "I won't be," he answers, "if you can swear to me that it'll the best decision you can possibly make for yourself."

"And you'll be satisfied with that?" Oikawa asks. 

"I'll be satisfied with that."

Oikawa digs in further against Hajime's shoulder and lets the silence overtake them for a moment. Hajime thinks it is a soft kind of pressure, the kind that leaves the both of them with a dull ache, with the same kind of light breathlessness one would get from a brisk morning walk. To him, it is the quiet acknowledgement of things to come.

"And you won't miss me, if I don't go your way?" Oikawa finally asks.

Hajime feels his face go red, that static cling between them turning into something unbearable. At this, he sticks to Oikawa anyway, traces a few scribblings into his back, and raises a few veils of his own. "Don't be ridiculous," he answers, letting a weary smile spread across his face. _Don't even fucking try that on me._

 

**_x_ **

 

"Iwa-chan, did anyone ever tell you what the chances of winning Olympic gold were? Like, if you were to take all the people on this earth and put them against the odds?" 

Hajime stares up from his half-done homework, frowns slightly, and pushes Oikawa's calculus textbook closer to him. It has been an hour and he's barely touched his problem sets, which he complains incessantly about when he leaves them piled up and dreadfully unfinished.

"I am _not_ going to entertain this," Hajime tells him, pressing his own nose back into his copy of _Oku no Hosomichi_ by the legendary poet Bashō, who supposedly only lived with eleven or so lives until the ripe age of fifty. Wrinkling his nose at the tall tale, Hajime flips a page and just thanks the stars he doesn't have to read another _poetry anthology_ , but thinks this travel log isn't all that exciting, either. He glazes over each word and sighs about it, tuning in at the very end of the page to tell himself he's read enough today. At the last line, something catches Hajime's eye.

 _'Everyday is a journey, and the journey itself is home,'_ Bashō writes, and Hajime just stares up at Oikawa like its instinct. Like every poet's stanzas have been about them, at every instance.( _But what a stupid thought that is,_ Hajime tells himself, when better energies could be devoted to getting Oikawa to finish his homework before midnight.)

"So, do you want to know the chances?" Oikawa asks again, out of the silence. Hajime lets Bashō dance away when he sets down his book.

"Will you do your math homework if I let you tell me?" 

"I guess."

_"I guess?"_

Oikawa glares down at his mechanical pencil and picks it up anyway, tapping it curiously against his nose. "Fine, I will. I just have sooo many problem sets, it's honestly _killing_ me."

"Are you just going to spout theatrics at me or are you going to _actually_ tell me the chances of winning a gold medal at the Olympics?"

" _Wow_ , I didn't know you were so excited about this, Iwa-chan," Oikawa teases.

"I'm leaving."

"Iwa-chan!" Oikawa laughs a little bit. "Okay! _Okay_ , I'll tell you. _To start off_ , I'd like to say that the chances of just being an Olympian itself is about one in six hundred thousand," he muses, proud of himself for remembering the number, "but to win gold?" His eyes loom up in joking tension, theatrics continued.

"That's one in twenty-two million." 

"Oh," Hajime answers in nonchalance, but he does not like those odds at all. He thinks of the tallest pedestal on the three-part podium, national anthems, post-game interviews, and the ribbon of a heavy-hanging medal. _One in twenty-two million._ It does not feel that far off to Hajime. Things like getting struck by _lightning_ feel far off to Hajime.

At this, he's tempted to yell at Oikawa again, because he's sure he might getting into one of his moods again, _pleasantly downtrodden,_ but he just scowls even further when he realizes that he's not getting that particular Oikawa Tooru today; there isn't a trace of distress anywhere on that face of his, and his lips are slightly curled, content, like he's just won a game of mahjong against himin the park. 

 _"So,"_ Oikawa starts again, "I've put some _thought_ into it. If I have the same chances of winning at Tsukuba as I do at Hosei, _one in twenty two million,_ why should I go to Tsukuba, then? Tokyo seems more fun anyway, to exercise those chances."

Hajime shakes his head. "Get back to your math homework, because your numbers are completely wrong. It wouldn't be those odds. They're obviously higher when you're at a good program. A good program that gets you _noticed_. I know you know this, Oikawa."

"But I want to go to Hosei," Oikawa relents with a whine.

"Put more thought into it. Who says I'm even going there anyway? Maybe I'll stay home and manage a flower shop." 

"Why are you implying I'd go to Hosei for the likes of _you_ , Iwa-chan?" 

"Three days ago, you said," Hajime clears his throat in putting on his best Oikawa voice, " _oh, we'll be able to play together!_ You said this right to my face." 

"Well, the point is, it doesn't matter where I'm going to go, because I'm going to go pro, either way!" Oikawa exclaims, getting huffier than Hajime expected, and the latter can't help but shrink slightly at his _brazenness,_ his lack of the dancing anecdote.

With this, there's silence, and Hajime isn't sure he wants to kiss him or kick him. Pressure builds, like summer fireworks. To mitigate his own need to _cool the fuck down,_ Hajime just rips out a piece of pastel blue paper from the back of one of his notebooks, slams it down in front of Oikawa, and reclaims his copy of _Oku no Hosomichi_ to try to read.

"Give it more thought," Hajime tells him, quelling his urge to lose his temper, "and write yourself some pros and cons about it. This isn't just a whim, or a bunch of numbers you just pull out of your head. Think about things. Just think."

Oikawa takes the paper into his hands, folds it carefully like it's coated in gold foil, and leaves it in the spine of one of his books.

"I still want to go to Hosei, Iwa-chan," Oikawa tells him. He twirls his mechanical pencil in his hand before delving in to solve one of the calculus problems in his stead, graphite gracing the paper. When Oikawa finishes, Hajime watches him circle his answer, but he presses so hard he breaks the thin stick of lead under his grip. Before Hajime can make out the answer on the page, Oikawa picks it up and gets up from the table, looking towards the door. 

"I'm going to get some juice from the fridge," Oikawa tells Hajime in changing the subject, not facing in his direction. "You want any?"

With a shake of his head, Hajime is still busy stirring with idea. _I still want to go to Hosei, Iwa-chan._  

"Ah, no," Hajime says with a shake of the head. With a shrug, stiff in movement, Oikawa just leaves his homework on the table and leaves the room altogether. Hajime gets closer at the solved calculus problem, finds that all of Oikawa's steps are completely and _utterly_ wrong, and glances down at the circled answer. _Four,_ it says, written clearly for Hajime to see, and at once he understands what Oikawa wants out of places like Tokyo and _Hosei University_.

 

**_x_ **

 

_Dear obaachan and ojiichan,_

_Sorry I haven't been writing lately, I actually just got back from the void about a week and a half ago so it’s been busy, preparing for tournaments and whatnot. I also got scouted by another school (same as Iwa-chan’s!) and I’ve been running around trying to collect my head! What a silly grandson you have. I hope it brings you a couple of laughs up there._

_Anyway, I’m just writing to you for a reason. I know I said I’ve been busy, and this letter might be an indication of things lightening up, but I'm afraid I won't be writing for a little while. Please don't think of me too horribly, but I've been preoccupied with this other little piece that I want to get perfect._

_It's honestly so silly (just a list, really) and I think you'd laugh at me more if you saw it from up above, but it's important to me. Iwa-chan told me to write a pros and cons list for this big decision I have to make soon, Hosei or Tsukuba, but it sort of turned into something else. It sort of reminds me of how you used to write poetry for ojiichan, obaachan, though I don’t think I’ll ever be as poetic._  

_(I can certainly try being poetic though, even if Iwa-chan says he hates it.)_

_(My theory is that he’s lying, anyway.)_  

_Well, enough of me chirping on. Hope I get to write to you soon! Please keep me in your prayers._

 

_-Tooru_

 

**_x_ **

 

"Hey, Iwaizumi, are we really going to celebrate his birthday at _camp?_ I just don't think I'll want to eat birthday cake after running those _evening foot races from hell,_ " Hanamaki tells Hajime one day in the hallways during lunch. 

Hajime shrugs and sucks his milk box dry, crushing the cardboard in his hands. "If we don't, he'll sulk and and I don't want to deal with that at training for two weeks." 

"I think you're right," Matsukawa says with his mouth full, leaning against the wall as he takes another chunk out from his rice ball. "But he's been so focused on other things in class lately I'm not sure he'll notice. You know how he is when he gets something in his head. Only his beloved _Iwa-chan_ can get him out. This time he's scribbling at this list."

"Perhaps he is _the greatest poet of our time,_ " Hanamaki hums, pretending to scribble with the wave of his hand, face still absolutely deadpan. "But seriously, what _is_ he writing down? Sometimes, when I get to the club room early for practice, he's there tapping a pencil against his chin. Sometimes it takes him ages to actually write anything down. What is he, _Bashō_?” 

"What list are you guys talking about?" Hajime asks.

Matsukawa sighs and says, “oh, I don’t know. Sometimes I catch him _really in the zone_ and he starts mouthing things like Tokyo—yeah, usually it’s _Tokyo_. Maybe he’ll pick Hosei after all?” 

Hajime understands now. Or at least, he thinks he does. “Trust me, he’ll pick a place when he’s good and ready.”

“Oh, what a bother, to have _alll_ those schools fawning over you,” Hanamaki quips. “I’m telling you, once Harukou rolls around, he’ll have his pick. If list-writing is his way of getting rid of _jitters_ , he probably doesn’t need it.”

“I think people deal with it in different ways,” Hajime says with a shrug, just as the bell rings to signal lunch’s end. They all nod in a pact to throw Oikawa Tooru a surprise birthday party at camp, seperate for their classes or meetings with guidance counselors, and leave the issue of their captain’s fabled letter-writing (or list-writing? _poem_ writing?) campaign.

When he passes Oikawa’s classroom, Hajime watches him quietly flirt with absolutely everyone inside, masks on but only lightly so today, and how he peers out the door as soon as he spots his best friend passing by.

He blinks just once, a second’s glitch in his facade, before returning to breeziness. At this, Hajime smiles right back at him, his gestures merely a twitch too, but he knows they’ve gotten through to each other. Through letters and potential poems, texts and the late night phone calls, Hajime knows him best by the passing glances they fail to keep secret.

 

**_x_ **

 

When Hajime first spots that familiar piece of light blue paper at the bottom of Oikawa's locker, held closed by the clip of a mechanical pencil and a childish sticker saying, **_KEEP OUT_** _,_ Hajime respects his wishes and hopes Tsukuba is on the forefront. Oikawa comes in shortly after, gathers the things he might have forgotten, and casually sticks the folded paper in his track jacket pocket.

"Iwa-chan, if you go around snooping, you'll miss the bus. Or better yet, I'll tell the coaches you've come down with the flu again and we'll leave without out you," Oikawa says with a smile. Despite his annoyances, he still finds the gall to link his pinky with Hajime's before letting go in the next instance.

"Have you been writing down your pros and cons, then?" Hajime asks, eyes directed at the other hand Oikawa's kept nestled in his pocket.

With the question raised, Oikawa looks caught between _yes_ and _no_ , lips pursed and head bobbing along.

"Well, I guess it's a list of some sort," Oikawa nods at his answer. "Not exactly pros and cons, but I'm doing as you said. _Giving it some real thought_."

"Fine," Hajime sighs out, realizes that 5:23AM is too early to argue with Oikawa about such trivial matters, and picks up his duffel bag to board the bus to their two-week training camp. Arm slung around Hajime on the way out, Oikawa leans on him like he's ready to fall asleep right then and there.

"You know, Iwa-chan, everytime we go to one of these training camps and I end up sleeping on your shoulder, I pretend we're taking a long trip somewhere," Oikawa dreams up.

"Well, you can't this time. The trip's only an hour and a half."

Oikawa sighs, separating from him when they pack their bags together on the overhead. "I can pretend, can't I?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"Say, maybe you'll be the one to nap on me this time."

"I don't think so," Hajime scoffs. 

"Do you want to make that a challenge, Iwa-chan?"

"Whatever," Hajime waves him off in tacit acceptance. He thinks he might be a little more tired than he thought he was when he realizes there's no one else on the bus except for the two of them. Oikawa is usually too eager to show up to these things, after all.

"Iwa-chan, you can sleep on my shoulder if you want to."

"I'm not tired."

"I heard you yawn six times on the way here."

"You kept _count_?"

"It's my job to notice things, after all," Oikawa says with a tired huff of his own. 

With the light smell of cigarette smoke wafting through the open windows, Hajime guesses the driver has gone outside to smoke, so he deduces he probably won't be back for a while. Crickets chirp, mournfully at peace, like the last track of a night's soundtrack. Just at the start of sunrise, the air hangs just a bit brisk in the pale edge of darkness, leaving Oikawa in an in-between of a silhouette and a shivering flush.

"You're cold," Hajime takes Oikawa's hand, lying on his shoulder reluctantly.

Oikawa laughs. "You noticed?"

"Do you think you're the only one who notices things, _four_ kawa?" Hajime nestles in with crossed arms, letting the beat of the crickets usher him to a semblance of sleep. He doesn't want to though, not completely at least, because he knows Oikawa will just laugh, softly in the way he does when they're alone, when it happens. _I told you so, Iwa-chan._ Hajime lets it happen anyway though, because four o' clock wake up calls will get the best of anyone.

  


**_x_ **

 

When Hajime dreams this time, he's writing letters again, and he knows they're for Oikawa. Feeling his wrist move in scribbling, he can't see anything but darkness.

But his mouth moves, forcing out the words, like he’s the one reading them out loud this time.

 _"Dear Tooru,"_ he finds himself saying. _"Just when will I get to see you again?"_

 

**_x_ **

 

_"Hello? Ah, yes, this is Oikawa Tooru, third year captain for the Aoba Johsai volleyball team. I believe you saw me play some time ago. Yes, that's me."_

_"Ah, yes, yes. The jump serve—I've worked very hard on that."_  

 _"Yes, I've really enjoyed playing all these years. We've built a great team this year. Hm? Ah, yes. We are top four in the prefecture."_  

_"Yes, sir, it's true. I only have four lives."_

_"No, sir, I don't think it will impact your prospects in the future."_

_"I mean, that's what I'm calling in regards to."_

_"Yes, that. The future."_

_"Well, I don't mean to make this a long call, but I think I'll be joining your team, if you'll still have me."_

_"Ah, no, I don't think I need more time to think about this."_

 

**_x_ **

 

When Oikawa’s eighteenth birthday comes rolling around on July twentieth, they are three days into training camp, nestled in Yamagata with the mountains and the hanging summer heat.

_“Shh! Be quiet, he’s coming.”_

_“Kunimi! Get down already! And don’t give me that, I-don’t-crouch-business. You’re at Seijou, so you’re going to crouch!”_

“ _Hellooo_? Where is everybody?”

When Oikawa comes into the room complaining that no one’s around to help clean the gym up, he flicks on the switch, is greeted with exploding party poppers, cone-shaped hats, and a haphazardly-made alien cake baked by the the team manager. He nearly falls back into the hallway, he’s so utterly surprised, but Hajime relents a bit of a smile and helps him into the room. Collectively, Matsukawa and Hanamaki hand him a gift certificate for the local ramen shop back in town, citing, _‘now you’ll have more money to treat us to roasted pork ramen,’_ while the first years orchestrate themselves for a _happy birthday_ chant and an impromptu performance of their original play, _The Glorious Abduction of Oikawa Tooru._ (In which he really does get abducted in the end; Kunimi calls it an epic _tragicomedy_ for a reason, whatever that means for a production lasting a total of eleven and a half minutes.) Oikawa enjoys every bit of it anyway, laughing lightly behind the birthday cards he’s yet to read, and Hajime can’t help but find all of it a fun affair, too. 

And when the party ends just an hour later (because both the captain and the vice-captain knows an early morning of footraces awaits them) Hajime leads Oikawa out into the grass, feet bare and aching from practice but on their arches, just slightly, to kiss him anyway. Amidst the crickets and the fireflies, the rustle of the trees signaling a storm ahead, Hajime lets Oikawa tug on the leather of the bracelet of his wrist, slips something in the palm of his hand, and folds his fingers closed.

"Happy birthday, I guess," Hajime tells him, still close, jackets tied around their waists, T-shirts slightly trounced by sweat. At the call, Oikawa doesn't open his hand just yet. He smiles instead, open mouthed and still laughing. Genuine. 

"Iwa-chan," he says, "you didn't have to. I know you put a lot of work in putting the party together."

Feeling himself go red, Hajime shakes his head. "And how are you sure it was just me?"

"I think you whip the team into shape in more ways than one," Oikawa says. "Those first years really know how to put on a show."

Hajime is the one to laugh this time, imagining Kindaichi as a _damsel in distress._ "They'll do good for us, when our time is up here," he says rather lightly. 

Oikawa frowns at this sentiment. "Wow, Iwa-chan, way to make it sound like we're dying.

"Aren't we, though?" Hajime tells him, more in joking than anything else; Oikawa takes it with the levity Hajime expects, slightly uncomfortable but nowhere near feigned, and takes the time to slowly unfurl his hand for the gift. In the center of his palm rests a braided bracelet, not quite matching Hajime's, but the sentiment is there, all the same. Hajime smiles faintly when Oikawa slips it on, loosely hanging it off his wrist and lingering close to a hand meant to be held.

At the sight, he wants to tell Oikawa, _'think of me when you put it on, even when we're apart,'_ but he cannot bring himself to say something so wanting. He just stares back down at the ground again, observes a firefly rise up in the same way his nerves light up from that familiar, peculiar warmth in his belly, and stays quiet. Amidst the fireworks rushing up his veins, Oikawa keeps silence too, and he realizes they both have a lot of things to say.

"Iwa-chan, I made a phone call today, while you were taking the first years out for drills," Oikawa tells him.

Hajime places his glances on him and doesn't even ask the question. He knows the answer, too, because there was never any doubt about things, and because Hajime knows the shortcuts to every one of Oikawa's winding roads. 

"Hosei?" Hajime sighs out. 

"Hosei," Oikawa reiterates. "If I really do hate playing with you, I'll just transfer out right away. Rest assured, I have my options," he says, rather coolly. He peeks up, shy in how forthright he's being. "And just so you know, I haven't hated playing with you all these years, so I don't intend to start now."

Hajime smirks at him. "I haven't hated playing with you either, I guess." He suppresses his urge to feel happy about this, or at least getting downright exuberant, because he's sure he can do better than Hosei. Hajime wishes he could say the same for himself, because he _knows_ he's good, _really_ fucking good, but for all the _second little giants, the Ushiwakas_ , the other aces waiting in the wings, he knows a setter with a mean jump serve is a little rarer to find. 

Hajime will take Hosei with all he can carry. Oikawa can fly anywhere and everywhere else. 

"Iwa-chan?"

Hajime suddenly thinks of the high-hanging birdhouse again, swinging on the clothesline back in Miyagi; he remembers how his mother once told him that the Iwaizumis were halfway homes for those on their way up the sky, and how making shelter is their sixth sense. Looking right up at Oikawa, he feels the unbearable itch to ask if he's even _shelter_ at all, or if he's just making another ceiling to keep him down. He wonders if there's even any difference in between the two.

At Hajime's wordlessness, Oikawa wraps his arms around him, calm as the summer winds, sure as the crickets will chirp, and sticks something in his back pocket. Whispering in his ear, he says, "I knew I might get a reaction like this, which is why I worked hard on that list you said I should keep. Read it over, Iwa-chan, and come find me when you're finished."

Oikawa doesn't say anything more after that, opting to catch fireflies in the cups of his palms, smiling up at the sky when he decides to let one of them go, unhindered by the weight of the humid night.

At this, Hajime begins to read.

 

**_x_ **

 

✿ ** TWENTY ****THINGS TO DO WITH IWA-CHAN BEFORE AND AFTER WE MOVE TO TOKYO TOGETHER, A COMPREHENSIVE LIST BY OIKAWA TOORU** ✿

_(Note to Iwa-chan: If I ever catch you reading this list, you’re in big trouble, so please keep out and don’t be a snoop! I know you told me to keep a pros and cons list about all of this, but I got distracted. This is a lot better for a list though, isn't it? Anyway, stop reading past this point!)_

_(So, here we go! Oikawa Tooru gladly presents...twenty things to do with Iwa-chan.)_

  1. Go to nationals this year. Let Iwa-chan be the last spike, whoever the opponent is—because he’s always been there to hit your tosses, right?  

  2. Hold Iwa-chan's hand more, because that's honestly one of your favorite things to do, even if you're not willing to admit it.  
  

  3. Kiss him more, and try not to laugh when he tries to hide the fact he’s blushing. (Ew, mushy.)  
  

  4. Subsequently, don’t get too bashful when he kisses you, too. After all, it’s just Iwa-chan, plain-faced, best-friend, _always-there_ Iwa-chan. What is there to get excited about?  
  

  5. (Well...I guess that’s a lot to get excited about. His face is the best kind of face.)  
  

  6. Read him that really nice Bashō quote you found in a book you'd never finish, because you're sure Iwa-chan was too bored to actually get past the fifth page. It's sort of cheesy, totally uncool, but something you kinda get, maybe. It goes like, ' _Everyday is a journey, and the journey itself is home.'_  
  

  7. Buy more ice cream and pudding cups—that way you don’t have any more stupid fights with him about taking _the last one_. Make sure there are never any _last ones!_  
  

  8. Buy him the best birthday presents from now on, even if he’s absolutely terrible at doing the same. (I forgive you, Iwa-chan, we can’t all be perfect.)  
  

  9. Be careful with your lives from now on, Tooru, because Iwa-chan won’t be there to scold you all the time even if you both go to Tokyo. It's a big place and you guys have your own lives. Seriously! Tie your shoes and eat your vegetables. And please look both ways before crossing the street, because god knows you forget to do that sometimes. _Get the volleyballs out of your head._ Because you still might not know how to stretch your lives to match Iwa-chan’s, but at least you can take the extra precautions, right?  
  

  10. Iwa-chan, are you reading this list?  
  

  11. (Even though I told you not to?)  
  

  12. You’re in big trouble, Iwa-chan.  
  

  13. (Just kidding. I’m not mad. I guess I feel kinda really good about things, and it’s a nice feeling.)  
  

  14. Oh, gosh. What a predicament. (Should I even keep going?)  
  

  15. So...because that pesky Iwaizumi Hajime has gotten ahold of this list, _everything is absolutely ruined!_ Where is the surprise? Now you _really_ can’t mention the fireworks you plan to see with him, or the fact that you want to go on real dates to eat cake. Or that you’d like to take your first drink with him, beers over Korean barbeque. And now _you_ really can’t tell him how much you’d like to massage his feet when they get tired from jumping, and how you hope he’ll do the same for you. (He probably will, because he’s a softie.) You won’t be able to tell him how much you want to travel to Europe with him, how you want to see the catacombs and that alien-made Stonehenge thing. You’re probably dying to slink into bed with him and hide under the blankets like your kids again, but it’s not like you’ll admit that, either.  
  

  16. And you know what? You’ll probably have a hard time telling him, _‘hey, listen, I just want to do everything with you,’_ because that’s just the kind of person you are sometimes. (Most times, maybe.) Because you’ve been with Iwaizumi Hajime _so_ long, that sometimes you forget what words are with him. But you’ll say them anyway, huh, Tooru?  
  

  17. You will, because time is of the essence. Having four lives isn't exactly indicative of a marathon. So go on, say it. Say it, Tooru!  
  

  18. And Iwa-chan! Don’t stop reading now. Please don’t.  
  

  19. Tooru, you'll say the words because you love Iwa-chan, just like how he loves summer and spiking your tosses. Because he’s _Iwaizumi Hajime_ , like a fired-up sun, but you choose to get close anyway. Because sometimes, he thinks he means to burn with how much he yells and scolds, but his warmth is just right and you hope that he knows that.  
  

  20. Because you think by the end of the day, Hajime is just the person for you. You like him a lot, and you don’t think you’ll ever want it any other way. So you'll take this sentiment with you to Tokyo, because no one can tell you where to go. You’ll go wherever you want to go! Because this is where you know you'll be happy. Wherever, whenever, and whatever will happen.



 

(So, with that said, will you be happy with me too, Iwa-chan?)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! As said in the beginning, I had to increased the number of parts from three to four to six (god this always happens to me wtf) but anyway, this was a fairly death-free chapter, which I thought was the right way to go, considering all of the death in the last chapter. 
> 
> As usual, PLEASE come chat with me on @levkens on twitter or companions.tumblr.com :^)


	5. camellias

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reminder that I made [a mix](http://8tracks.com/cavalcade/thunder-and-lightning) for this fic!

 

 

> **_Tooru’s Infinite Summer_ **
> 
> (a collection of haikus by a grandmother in her twilight years, dedicated to a grandson I wish I could give so much more.)
> 
> Author’s Note: The idea of this book was conceived when my grandson, Tooru, came to play at my estate in Sendai one summer’s day a year ago. He brought another child by the name of Hajime, a brash, but lovely boy with a very big heart, and sight of them was one to behold, for it was the first time I had ever seen Oikawa with such a close friend. What fun they were having, chasing each other in foot races, patching each other up, hand-in-hand right after. It certainly raised my spirits, despite being on my last couple of lives.
> 
> As I watched them by the window, my notebooks blank for years, I suddenly had the idea to write for the two of them. I thought, ‘how it’d be nice if I could weave them into words,’ so this is what I seek to do, right until my last moments. Isn’t life just grand that way, to be able to devote yourself to such pleasantries?
> 
> Well, in short, I do hope you get to read this someday, Tooru, even if I never get this published. May your little lives turn into something big and bold, with Hajime right beside you. May you find all your unexpected miracles, and come upon the best this world can offer you.

 

**  
.01**

**summer might leave you,**

**but with him, your brilliant boy,**

**you’ll conquer seasons.**

 

 

 

It is the fine line between night and morning when Hajime spends the sunrise looking for Oikawa on the riverbank. With the break of dawn hitting his face, sunlight strong for the last day of summer vacation, Hajime finds his setter wading in the shallow place where the sediments of the shore meet the water, pebbles pressed under his bare feet. An unopened milk box and a neglected convenience store meat bun, Oikawa's choice of breakfast-to-go after some of his morning runs, sits at his side to be helplessly ignored. On the slope of lawn leading to him, Hajime nearly steps on Oikawa's thrown-off running shoes and his _Hosei University_ baseball cap, for which they will send their security deposits any day now.

Hajime would normally yell out, _"hey, why did you ask me to meet you here, Fourkawa?"_ because it is not like Oikawa to call him out at times like sunrise. He stops himself when he makes out the sound of piano keys, dropping from dramatics and into something as subdued as the early morning.

From the phone resting in his lap, Hajime continues on to the small static of music blasted on high. ' _Classical this time,'_ Hajime thinks, because Oikawa has this funny habit of running to dramatic overtures sometimes, if it's not K-Pop or a playlist of the usual chart-toppers. And in all honesty, he can't make out the name of the tune of it this time, _most times,_ but Hajime knows it sounds like a busy one, fast and striking, like a final battle scene. But it is also soft like a lullaby, the clipping of a camellia bush. It ebbs and flows like this, chaotic but gentle all the same. (Hajime would later learn its name, Frederic Chopin's _Fantaisie-Impromptu in C-Sharp Minor, Op. posth. 66,_ from the back of an old record found in their shared apartment in Tokyo.)

At the sight of Oikawa, white tee lightly lifted in the back, hair mussed because he forgot to brush it this morning, at the sound of him, the soft part of that solo piano, Hajime flips off his sandals and tromps through the riverbed to join him. Oikawa hears him from the crunch of his steps, offering a second's worth of a weary smile before staring back out at the sunrise. On closer inspection, Hajime sees that he's been tugging at his leather bracelet. Hands unlink from the thread. The soft piano continues to linger before Oikawa shuts his phone off altogether.

"So, why did you call me out here," Hajime clicks his phone on quickly, checking the time, "at _five o' seven_ in the goddamned morning?"

Oikawa shrugs, tilting his head back to face the sun. "Summer's wearing thin, so I thought we should enjoy it before school starts again,” he answers Hajime.

"Yeah?"

"M-hm."

"And you didn't think training camp was fun enough?" Hajime thinks of Seijou being at the top of the _games won_ list, the ghost stories told before bedtime, no one _actually_ dying in the trip this time, sneaking out in the morning (much like _this_ ) to kiss Oikawa at sunrise, spiking until his palms burned like this season itself, Oikawa's birthday party, getting that list, that _love letter,_ and how he might just keep it in his wallet for the next thousand, million years to come. _What a summer_ , Hajime thinks, suppressing a smile, like a shot to the head, the heart. It is something to sigh over.

"It was," Oikawa says with a relenting nod, keeping quiet with lips mashed closed afterwards. Hajime just stares on.

"Then, what's wrong?"

Sometimes, Hajime can really say that he's had an unsatisfying summer. Or one he hadn't done enough for. One where he stayed inside too much, or ate too little, or watched too much television. He thinks that this isn't one of them. If Hajime had to compose poetry, this summer would be what he'd write haikus to. _The Tale of the Near-Perfect Third Year Summer, by Iwaizumi Hajime._

What a silly thought. Hajime can't help but laugh at himself. Still, Oikawa doesn't seem as satisfied with any of the morning's levity. Falling back into a straight face, Hajime watches how Oikawa's fingers keep tugging at the bracelet, some of the ends already more frayed than his, disconcerted by the things he’s still trying to put into the right words. Hajime can always tell by the blinking dart of Oikawa's eyes, glances to the sky and then back at Hajime, like he might find the answer in that expansive space.

"Truth is, I couldn't sleep." Hajime frowns at Oikawa's confession. _Truth is. Four_ kawa might be being forthright today. At this, Hajime leans closer to him, sees the faded dark circles under his eyes, and wonders if he's gotten any sleep since returning from Sendai yesterday evening. Oikawa rubs at his eyes like a simple touch will make them go away.

"Why is that? Was your nephew that shaken up?"

Oikawa shakes his head. "No, Takeru took his first death just fine. He's just mad that he had to go from allergic reaction. _'How uncool! Uncle Tooru's first death was by lightning! What about me?'_ " He rolls his eyes and un-purses his lips after imitating the _little devil_ (or at least, that's what Oikawa calls Takeru in private.) Hajime just nods along.

"But that's not what's bothering you. You saw something else in Sendai," Hajime concludes, looking past Oikawa's little show, because he's usually not here for those _anyway._

"Hm," Oikawa hums out with a shrug. "I don't know." (Or, in other words, _'where do I even begin?'_ in Tooru-talk.) When he notices Hajime staring down at his hands, Oikawa stops tugging at his bracelet altogether, folding his fingers into a tight little fist. He smiles pointedly, unfurling and shaking out his hand to hold Hajime's, to which the latter just rejects with a click of a tongue and a traditional flick to the forehead. A resulting quiet streams through in a morning breeze, as Hajime lies back and Oikawa sorts through his thoughts. The latter even resumes picking at his bracelet again, staring out at the stream.

"My sister cried in front of me yesterday," Oikawa says. "We were in front of a riverbank in Sendai, like this one. It was her first time going outside in I'd say, a week and a half. Just after lunchtime."

Hajime feels his stomach drop the second he sees that faintest glimmer in Oikawa's eye, the worst type, a pretty defense against crying like his sister, too. A small frown forms next on Oikawa's face, like he's thinking, _'don't you dare cry, Tooru. Suck it up.'_ Oikawa doesn't this time though, because maybe he's too tired or subdued by the sunrise, but whatever it is, Hajime knows it doesn't hurt any less. Taking the liberty of holding Oikawa's hand himself, Hajime stares at him from the grass and feels too numb to sit up. He hates how much his knees wobble from the promise of bad news. He hates seeing Oikawa like this, shoulders raised like he's trying not to break his seams.

_'Cry if you want to. I won't make fun of you.’_

At this sensation, Hajime tugs at Oikawa's hand further and drums his fingers against the bone of his setter's knuckles. In Hajime's head, that solo piano rises up again in something harried, the constant motion of _Oikawa Tooru._

"You know how I told you that people in my family like to hole themselves up when they get to their lasts?" Oikawa asks, pressing his chin to the ridge of own collarbone, casually hiding.

"Yeah."

"It's been much of the same with my sister. She even blamed herself for Takeru's first death. _If I was at that birthday party, I could've told the girl's parents he was allergic to blueberries,"_ he says. "She was getting all worked up, you know? I've never seen anything like that before."

Hajime has. Right in front of him. He thinks of Oikawa all those years ago, sprawling and scared and more than worked up over the opponents he never thought he'd reach, and the moment his brow furrows and Oikawa tries to hide something like an embarrassed little _frown,_ Hajime knows he remembers that time, too. Oikawa shrugs it off and wipes at his face again, raising momentary red splotches on his cheek in blushing, and draws his knees closer to himself as the smallest security.

"I told you, didn't I?" Oikawa muses, dipping his head toward his knees, arms wrapped around himself like he might just curl up and never come back out. "My family hides when the last one's on the line. But I think it's hardly living at all."

Peeking out at the sun, almost done rising, then back at his setter, a _'well, please don't hide from me for too long'_ perched on his lips, Hajime sits up and reaches out from the sleeve of his windbreaker and rests his touch on Oikawa's arm instead. At the touch, Oikawa peeks up at Hajime and hums, eyes squinting at the sight of him. He makes out pieces of a smile by the slight curl at the corner of his mouth, a case of a lifted cheek, and raises himself up from his self-made abode, lowers his knees back down, and destroys it altogether.

"Iwa-chan, can you promise me something?"

Hajime scoots closer to Oikawa on the riverbank and comes precariously close to leaning on him. "Is that what you called me here for?" Hajime asks when Oikawa dotes on him with his rested head instead.

Oikawa laughs, shaking his head. "I just thought of it now. I only wanted you to come here to see the sunrise with me at first, you know? It's one of those _romantic_ things couples do, and I think it's something we should do at least once in our lifetimes."

Rolling his eyes, Hajime thinks Oikawa might be diverting again, but he doesn't really mind the winding road this time. "Isn't that the sunset, though? That's what people always stick around to see. Not to see it rise. You're lucky I was even going for a run today, anyway, because I'd usually kill you dead for getting me up at _five_ fucking AM. I imagine that other couples would feel the same way."

"Didn't we stay up all night practicing at camp anyway?"

"Your point being? We were practicing in the gym." Actually, Oikawa was talking about it then, too, about the damned sunrise. _Complaining_ might be the better word for it. At this, Hajime traces his gaze on the gradient ahead of them, orange fading into the upper limits, clear blue ahead of them.

"We should have watched it then, too," Oikawa says with something soft, and Hajime turns to see his setter face away from him, right up at the sky that belongs to him. Curiously, Hajime wonders if the sight of the sun is making Oikawa all sorts of honest today, if he's been caught up in the _light of day,_ but maybe it's just a matter of growing up. They've each done some of that lately, and they're bound to do more.

"No use regretting things that could've been," Hajime tells him. "We had this one today, and they'll always be more to come—even if I have to wake up at _god knows when_ to see it with you."

Oikawa brightens, flicking up in a gaze with wide-set eyes. They sink, and then he has the nerve to scoff, breathy but true and just the slightest bit mean. "No one told you to be right about things all the time, Iwa-chan," he remarks.

"It's nice when you admit that I'm always right," Hajime jokes right back, laughing some, too. He lets the conversation meander into silence, letting the sound of them fall to the trickle of a town's stream, constantly flowing, all as the common sparrows signal flight patterns to each other overhead. ' _Onward, onward, onward,'_ they seem to be saying this time, _'because the sunrise is over. It's time to get to work.'_

"Iwa-chan?" Oikawa calls after Hajime, and he picks himself out his reveries.

"Yeah?"

"About that promise?"

"Oh yeah. Go on."

Oikawa takes a deep breath. Again, the sparrows call again, ' _onward, onward, onward.' Go on, you brilliant boy._ In Hajime's head, the solo piano of that unknown piece returns to another round of tranquility. On the ground, Oikawa is the one to get up from the ground first this time, a little better at towering even though his knees still wobble under him.

"Promise you'll never let me live my last like I'm trapped in it," Oikawa says, looking Hajime in the eye this time. "No matter where we are or what we're doing."

There is no winding anecdote to his call to promise this time, no pretty diversions by the means of flirting. Hajime loses his breath for a moment, because he's so fucking proud, _weirdly proud,_ and lets the world around him stop for a second to take it all in.

"Like I'd let you do it any other way," Hajime finally lets himself say as an answer, when the sun casts itself up to the sky for the day to come. Peering up over the water and violet-hazed hills, a Hajime thinks about what the horizon might look like in Tokyo, realizes that sky is not theirs to take yet, and seeks to scrape the hurried sentiments off his chest. For now, he thinks he might want to go on that morning run after all, so he lifts Oikawa out of the grass, helps him stand on his two feet, and charges up the hill.

 

**_x_ **

 

That night in his own bed alone, Hajime has that dream again. Just a little more vivid than before, he's writing letters at his desk, and his hand is shaking with the pen in his hand. It is raining outside when he peers out the window, and he swears he can taste the charcoal burning in the air. Hajime realizes it's coming from inside him. In this dream, he presses a hand over his chest, presses his chin downward to the space between his shoulders, and takes a deep breath. The letter, which Hajime cannot read for some reason, has been finished and written neatly for blurred eyes to see.

 _"Hey Tooru,"_ he reads nonetheless, because he seems to have memorized every single line in the letter. It almost feels like he’s reading off a teleprompter, words melting off the page. _"I'm tired of waiting. Won't you come back home?"_

Outside, the rain really starts to fall, and Hajime feels a lump harden in his throat.

_"Are you ever coming back?"_

His lips almost stick together from a sudden bout of cotton-mouth.

_“So we can be together once again?”_

He says nothing more after that.

In the morning, Hajime wakes up with tears in his eyes, still fresh from the fall. He cannot say that this is the first time this has happened, but his mind has always been too hazy to make any sense of it. Dreams are just dreams, anyway, Hajime tells himself, as he presses his ringing ears to his pillow. _Go back to sleep._

Because nightmares, even the gentle, gasping ones, are meant to be left behind. _Onward you must go._

 

**_x_ **

 

_Dear obaachan and ojiichan,_

_It's Tooru, your grandson! Are you glad to be hearing from me? It's been a long time since I wrote, so I thought it would be nice to send you guys another letter._

_Harukou is coming up in a week, and I'm really excited about it. This will be my last high school tournament, and I really think we'll get to go to nationals this time around! We have a bunch of really good guys on the team, and it's times like this I wish you could come see my games. Maybe you already do?_

_(If that's the case, please keep an eye on Iwa-chan, why don't you? I don't think I'll ever admit this out loud, because he already has a big head and a high hairline, but there's really no contest...he's our ace and the best one I could ask for. Best friend, best ace? I guess there's a correlation between the two, sometimes.)_

_Anyway, I won't blabber on anymore. Iwa-chan says I should get back to practicing, and some of my teammates are calling me 'Japan's Premier Poet.' Have a good morning, up there in heaven, and I hope you can keep me in your prayers!_

_-Tooru_

 

**_  
_**

 

**.02**

**if you’re scared, tooru,**

**that’s okay. rise with the sky**

**when you’re ready to.**

 

**_  
_**

 

On the nights Hajime gets to spend with Oikawa, hushed and hazy under the extra layer of covers, too tired from practice to do much else more than kiss, he is apt to reach out for him anyway. Like the high tide, he pulls Oikawa close by the yank of his sleepshirt and feels him, half-asleep with exhales matching the slow chirp of the summer-worn crickets. Oikawa just presses his nose to the nape of Hajime’s neck without much of a fuss this time, a trace of a kiss following in one effortless motion.

“Do you have to go soon?” Oikawa asks, taking his turn in tugging at Hajime’s shirt sleeve. “It’s getting late and I can tell you’re already falling asleep.”

Hajime nods drowsily and sits up. At this, Oikawa follows after him and looks absolutely silly, blankets cascading over his head like a child hiding under a collapsed pillow fort. Oikawa un-hoods himself and lets his sheets fall around his shoulders, to which Hajime just crawls forward over his crisscrossed lap. Their next kiss is barely one at all, _the most electrifying kind,_ Hajime finds, and lets himself linger unbearably close. Hajime takes a deep breath. _Nightmares be damned_ , he thinks next, because something tangible like this, having _Tooru_ by the rarest millimeters, means a billion times more than repeated bad dreams.

“We’re overdue for a footrace in the morning,” Hajime tells him next. “I want to be fresh enough to beat you.”

Oikawa laughs, foreheads stilled glued together, and Hajime feels the light puff of air on his cheek from another giggle. “What an unromantic thing to say,” Oikawa continues on, “after kissing me like that.”

“You’re being too sentimental,” Hajime says, kissing him once for good measure, anyway, “especially when the tournament’s three days away.” He looks up at Oikawa’s alarm clock again, seeing 1:13 AM in taunting red, surely urging Hajime to go home—because there might be nothing wrong with sleeping with Oikawa, sharing this space, but he has to admit that a twin-sized bed isn't exactly cutting it for his back in the mornings. Hajime can usually ignore this for the sake of spending time with Oikawa, but not when they both have a tournament to win.

“You’re right,” Oikawa admits with a roll of his eyes, letting them sink again after. Hajime knows that look, like all his others. He begins to wonder if that gaze of Oikawa's was made just for the likes of night, heavy-lidded and fluttering, like light cloud cover passing over stars. Watching Oikawa fall back onto the sheets, Hajime thinks it might be a case of _bedroom eyes_ at first, but he knows the subtle difference between Oikawa’s _I want you_ and _I want you to stay._ He waits for Oikawa to blink, because that’s where he gives it all away: after another instance of cloud cover, his eyes widen in just the slightest way, a whole microcosm in that millimeter’s worth of movement. _I want you to stay,_ said in a way he’d never dare utter to anyone else _._

Gently, Oikawa tugs on Hajime’s bracelet again, eyes peering up in near-disarmament. _Lay down your weapons. Tear down those veils._ To Hajime, the resulting sight of Oikawa feels like looking into amber pots of honey.

“Let’s do other drills tomorrow,” Oikawa insists. “We can lift weights in the yard and have a push-up competition instead. That way, you won’t need to go home for your running shoes in the morning. I'll even let you have my share of pickled radish at breakfast." Hajime laughs just a little at this, lies back down next to Oikawa, and wraps an arm around his waist, shaking his head in relenting.

"So do I win, Iwa-chan?" Oikawa teases, the silhouette of his index finger drawing something invisible on the blank wall ahead, one of his funny little motions.

"Win _what_?"

"Getting you to stay tonight."

"That's not winning."

"I think it is."

"Well, why don't you shut up and go to sleep, _fourkawa?_ " Hajime asks, turning away completely under the covers and shutting his eyes. "Or I'll definitely beat you at that push-up contest in the morning."

Oikawa stays quiet, and for a moment, Hajime really wonders if he's fallen asleep for the night. He flips over to face Oikawa again, perches up over him, head on a shoulder, and kisses him behind the lobe of his infamously soft ear.

"Why do you want to me stay so badly, anyway?" Hajime asks him. Oikawa doesn't answer except for the soft rise and fall of his breath. _Asleep for sure,_ Hajime thinks. _Just so. I should be doing the same._

"Nightmares," comes a small voice, half-asleep, unaware of its honesty. Or maybe Oikawa's just let himself drift that way this time. To Hajime, the voice is sweet. The voice is terrifying in a way he'd face a million more times, instantly rusing him out of sleep and into something alert.

"Nightmares?" Hajime asks. "About what?"

"Random things. Sometimes, I dream that you're writing letters to me."

Hajime's stomach drops hard. "And why should that count as a nightmare?" he tries to ask, like this is nothing.

"Because you're not the type to write letters," Oikawa tells him like this is the hardest thing in the world to say.

"I'm being serious," Hajime tells him.

"So am I."

"Oikawa."

"Tell me, Iwa-chan, when was the last time you didn't tell me something to my face?" Oikawa says sleepily. "Why did you need to write letters? Where was I, where you couldn't reach out to me, to say what you needed to say?"

"It's just a dream, Oikawa. It's not real." The words don't feel quite right, coming off Hajime's tongue. At this, Oikawa says nothing further in response, and Hajime thinks of the bad dreams of his own. _It's not real_. He wonders if Oikawa ever wakes up crying too, resolves to discard that possibility, and yanks him by the shirt hem again to bring him close again. Slow and trying to find ease, Oikawa draws out a breath, warmth of his exhale spreading across the cotton of Hajime's shirt, and falls limp after a while, settled by sleep.

 

_x_

It's 3:08AM when Hajime traces the line of Oikawa's back, content and almost ready to fall asleep himself. He stills his beating heart, tells himself he's guarded Oikawa well enough from malicious dreams, and dares to drift off into a place without him.

That night, Hajime doesn't dream of writing letters. He finds a book of poetry at the bottom of a shelf and begins reading, although he can't make out any of the words.

 

**_x_ **

 

In the morning, Oikawa beats Hajime in their two-person push-up contest by a full handful and gloats about it endlessly over breakfast. As childish retribution, Hajime steals his piece of grilled mackerel pike, stuffs it in his mouth, and watches Oikawa fall apart over a piece of fish and the pickled radish he had promised the night before. Hajime takes one bite of it, watches Oikawa wilt in his seat, and returns it back to him with a click of his tongue. Oikawa peeks up, laughs, and tells Hajime he's going soft, to which the latter thinks that maybe he is.

"Iwa-chan, don't you know? That if you let your heart grow too gentle, you'll only be able to do half your usual push-ups?"

"You made that up," Hajime says, sticking a glob of rice into his mouth.

"Don't be a sore loser," Oikawa teases with a bit of a grin. His mother, coming back into the kitchen, points a pair of chopsticks at Oikawa and tells him to stop taunting Hajime. Oikawa promptly apologizes, and much too breezily, at that.

With a sigh, the sound of it lost under a bubbling kettle on the stove, Hajime doesn't have the heart to tell Oikawa he's absolutely exhausted. Oikawa looks over, blinks twice, and in continuing his good mood, takes Hajime's hand in secret under the table. Hajime only holds back, fingers wrapping together loosely, and from there they only let silence take over. Hajime sends his regards for the perfect grilled mackerel. Oikawa's mother thanks Hajime and switches the radio on for today's weather, stumbling upon a local news bulletin instead. Something about camellias. Hands continue to stay linked, absentmindedly, under the spread of breakfast.

_"Forecasters are predicting an anomaly of the botanical type for next summer, citing from soil samples found in the mountain passes. Expect rapid camellia blooms in the Miyagi prefecture in the upcoming year, especially in partially shaded areas with mild sun."_

Oikawa tilts his head, leans on the palm of a free hand with chopsticks still in his grip, and observes Hajime with the sort of seriousness he keeps on court.

_"Forecasters say it will be one of the most beautiful phenomena in Japan's most recent history, as flower blooms will occur all over the country."_

"Are you tired, Iwa-chan?" Oikawa asks. Hajime is hazy enough to let the question fly by him.

Around them, the radio drones on more about the camellias before going on to other news of the day. A Sendai politician announces he is not running for reelection, while another recap talks of a maltese from Kyoto winning best in show at a dog competition. With a turn of a knob, Oikawa’s mother flips through the other stations. There’s a blip of classical music, a call for contributions to the Seijou High volleyball team, and more talk of camellias on a popular morning talk show. Hajime rolls his eyes. _Camellias, camellias, camellias_. How much could they talk on about flowers?

 _“Did you hear about Miyagi’s camellias? I’ve seen some red ones in my day, but the scientists are calling for_ redder _than red. The color of life, I say. Blood in our veins. Find a whole forest of them and bring someone on a date!”_

_“Now, now, don’t you go getting all romantic on me. You don’t even know if they’ll grow that well!”_

_“Oh, pardon_ me _for thinking the gods might have some mercy on us this year. You know, I almost died twice during last season’s earthquakes! What a disaster.”_

Oikawa's mother turns off the radio with a click of a tongue. (Hajime thinks it’s funny how the weather never plays on the radio when you need it most. He smiles at this.) Sighing, she takes the pot off the stove and goes into the next room to with a steaming cup in her hand, leaving two boys with untouched breakfasts and the vague scent of tea leaves on their noses.

“Iwa-chan?”

Hajime looks up. "Hm?" he asks.

"Are you tired?" Oikawa asks again.

Hajime shakes his head and proves he isn't tired with a firm squeeze of Oikawa's hand. He still doesn't have the heart to tell him, _'listen, I was up because of you,'_ because some things are better left unsaid. Oikawa gets that. _Definitely._ At this, the setter grins like the likes of morning, subdued but ready to break out into something more, and gets up to turn the radio back on. He fiddles with the stations, settles on _Japan's biggest hits,_ and leans over the counter, shoulders at ease. Oikawa peers over at Hajime, starts humming along, and pours himself a cup of tea for himself; even the light way he holds his mug, delicate with one hand like he's got magic in his fingertipsmakes Hajime's ears burn.

 _No heart to say it_ , Hajime notices still. He closes his eyes, sighs about it, and wonders how he'd be able to do such a thing, anyway. ' _I couldn't sleep because I was looking after you,'_ Hajime practices in his head, ' _to chase the nightmares that might come. And even if they didn't come, even if they never do again, sometimes the sight of you is too good to fall asleep to anyway.'_

After the song ends, there is talk of camellias again, redder than red, and Oikawa turns to face Hajime in all of his _I-slept-well_ splendor. Digging his chopsticks into his rice and suppressing the urge to stare, Hajime lets himself settle on the sound of the radio once more before going back to his breakfast. _These flowers will be the talk of the town,_ the jockey says. Under the radio static, Hajime hears Oikawa drag his slippers across the kitchen tile. _A soft, little legend._ The kiss Oikawa places on Hajime's temple is told like a secret.

"Will you see the camellias with me next summer, Iwa-chan?" he whispers to him next.

At once, Hajime peers up. When he sees Oikawa, at ease for the morning, tea in a light hand, waves of hair slightly mussed, eyes bright for the day, he feels that easy transition from summer to autumn. Sometimes, he wonders if Oikawa embodies that gentle, peculiar space between seasons, that in-between of everything hot and cold, coming and going, living and dying.

_"What a sight to behold. A sight for sore eyes! It'll be something you wish you had forever."_

"Sure," Hajime tells him loud and clear, "but only if we win it big at nationals."

At the answer, Hajime keeps his eyes, unabashed, on the forming line of Oikawa's smile.

 

**_x_ **

 

“So, you two are really going to Tokyo, then?” Matsukawa asks one day, when Hajime’s splitting a loaf of melon bread with him during lunch, content to lounge around by the window.

Hajime sighs. “Yeah, but I don’t want to think about the paperwork right now. It sort of feels like I’ve checked out from this place, and that’s the last thing I want to think about. We’ve still got games to play.”

“Sounds like a headache.”

“It’s given me a few already.”

Looking out the window, Hajime and Matsukawa spot Oikawa in the courtyard, giving the second year setter, Yahaba, a few tips on tossing form. Hajime looks away with a huff of a grin, just slightly annoyed because Oikawa said he’d take a break the whole day today.

“Still, I know you’re not one to stray from your _one and honorable path,_ but what are you going to do once Harukou ends?”

Hajime frowns, keeping an eye on their captain outside. “I don’t know,” he answers absentmindedly. “go to Tokyo?”

“Yeah, we all know that already. But what about after?”

“Like you said. _The one and honorable path._ I haven’t thought that far yet.”

“Are you going to live with Oikawa in the city?”

“ _Yeah_ —wait, no, I mean—”

“That was a quick answer,” Matsukawa teases. “Must be reflex for you by now, huh?”

Flushing, Hajime just throws the rest of his lunch across their shared desk, stabs a hole into his milk box, and slyly glances back out at the courtyard. Outside, Oikawa’s laughing at something he can’t hear, and the sight of him just makes Hajime makes redder. Matsukawa singsongs a child’s rhyme and congratulates his captain and co-captain on their _recent marriage_ , wholeheartedly accepting Hajime’s half-eaten lunch with no apparent qualms.

 

**_x_ **

 

On the days he gets to the club room early, Hajime digs into his wallet and presses the creases out of Oikawa's list, careful not to rip any of the edges or to smear the graphite of his handwriting. He picks a part to read at random (this time it's the bit about getting their first drinks together) seeks to keep it at his core, and wonders if he'll end up memorizing the damned thing within a month's time.

"What are you doing, Iwa-chan?"

Hajime freezes. He considers stopping his impromptu practices when Oikawa catches him reading it by the end of that first month, right before leaving for their _Harukou_ match against Dewaichi High _._ Failing to hide the flush on his face, Hajime just hunches over on the bench and feels Oikawa lean over to deliver a secret kiss on the cheek, humming his way to the smallest, fleeting smile, the muscle memory of his face stretched comfortingly against Hajime’s.

"Today's the day," Oikawa says, removing himself. "I know you carry that letter everywhere you go, but you can see me hit my serves instead. Wouldn't that be better?" At the end of his question, he nods once, light on his feet but still grounded, somehow, like he's taking in the gravity of their last high school tournament together. Hajime knows he should, too, and peers down at the first point on his list. _Go to nationals this year. Let Iwa-chan be the last spike, whoever the opponent is—because he’s always been there to hit your tosses, right?_ He takes this all to heart, offers Oikawa the surest nod of the head, and tells himself that this will be the year, because for all the time he could've spent memorizing the list, writing terrible love letters of his own, he's been practicing relentlessly alongside Oikawa, spike after serve after receive after block.

Slipping on his Aoba Johsai jacket, tight for his broadened shoulders and every oncoming ounce of possibility, Hajime follows Oikawa out the door and seeks just to memorize the first point for now. _Win. Go to nationals this year. Onward, onward, onward._ It comes easy. Saying this to himself always comes easy.

 _'The rest,'_ Hajime thinks, _'the rest can follow later.'_

 

**_  
_**

 

**.03**

**in the games you play,**

**leap up, let your heart hurry,**

**and lead your legions!**

 

 

Hajime glances up, peers up at his captain, and finds inferno in those eyes, the jumbling of formations and technique and nerves, all amassed for that second set. Even though he jumps up like a wildfire in his serves, Oikawa talks to the rest of the team like he's extinguishing the heated trails under their feet. As captain, he doesn't dare to kill the spark, the summers still built up in all of them, but he makes sure not to let anyone implode, either.

"Stay calm," Oikawa says to the first years, shoulders lowered, approachable. "Look sharp," he hums to the boys he's been playing with for years, sharper because they’ve got _ease_ stitched on their uniforms. "Don't worry," he whispers during at time-outs, when they're down by four and Dewaichi has a very decent jump serve too (but it's _nowhere_ near as good as Oikawa's, not by any stretch of the imagination, because it's like comparing a drive-by town to a sprawling, age-tested mecca). Oikawa weaves through his team during their remaining minutes, hands clapping and voice lulled into focused serenity.

'It's confidence, _real and true,'_ Hajime thinks. He knows, when their eyes meet privately, flared-up glints amongst a sea of two dozen more, held still.

 _"Onward,"_ Oikawa says to the rest of the team, never to Hajime directly, because he knows they’re on the same page, right as the whistle blows and the game resumes on the court after a well-placed time-out. Oikawa knows how to be a momentum shift without it. His movements are a rally cry.

 

**_x_ **

 

That afternoon, Seijou ends up winning against Dewaichi 25-23 in the second set, two sets to nothing.

 

**_x_ **

 

“Just do it the way you always do.”

Oikawa twitches in place, nods, and says nothing more on the matter.

“Let me finish this,” Hajime tells him next, _reassures_ him in the smallest measures, still burning bright.

Oikawa should know it the most by now—that Hajime will hit anything he sets—but a ball high and away from the net _isn’t_ what they’ve been practicing. Another twitch comes from Oikawa by the rubbing of fingers, ready to toss to him again. _I will get it to you next time,_ his whole body says without an actual peep out of him, and Hajime feels no need to scold him further.

They are on the edge of another victory against Dateko, already have beaten them 25 to 19 in the first set. _Onward,_ past that iron wall again, as Hajime charges up the net. _Onward._ He feels the netting graze the _four_ on his jersey. _Onward._ Aone, the mainstay of Dateko’s defense, is as tough as usual. _Tougher,_ actually, which annoys the shit out of Hajime, even though he dares not to show it. _Onward, to race up the straight path._ He pushes the thoughts of _past_ and _far off future_ out of his head, forgets the constantly streaming thoughts of ‘ _he died twice for you’_ and ‘ _how the fuck are you going to look after him in Tokyo?’_ because none of that is relevant right now. _Don’t follow your gaze back to the crashing train. Don’t run down the big city sidewalks you don’t know yet._ The ball in front of him is the only thing he'll chase.

“Iwa-chan!” Off Oikawa's hands, the ball flies up into the air, spinning like a planet made for Hajime's orbit. Perfectly aligned for the ace of Seijou high. Against a fortress of height and glowering force, Hajime jumps up, feels himself break his barriers against a rookie, the setter, someone a full twelve centimeters taller than he is, and strike down anything that dares to call itself a limitation. Hajime watches the iron wall break into a million pieces in front of him and catches victory in his hands.

“Yes!”

Seijou versus Dateko, end of the second set. Final score: 25 to 22. At the official tweet of the whistle, feet landing back down on the ground, rest of the team shouting, “ _Amazing, Iwaizumi!”_ and _“That was incredible, Iwaizumi-san!”_ Hajime dares to feel invincible for a split second. He basks in it, even if it’s only for as long as the short team huddle by the net, and hides his excitements in favor of the next match ahead. Bowing his head under a towel for a second, he squeezes his eyes shut, adrenaline still making an upsurge. He wonders if his ribcage has shrunk to the size of a glass jar. Inhale. _You won—great._ _Just don’t look back, now. You have two more games to play to get to nationals._ Exhale. Deep breaths.

Ripping the towel off of his head, Hajime stares over at Oikawa, wipes the sweat off his brow as they exchange nods, and sets off to conquer the rest of the court like the kings they could be.

 

**_x_ **

 

When Hajime forgets that other people forge their strengths over the summer too, it is against Karasuno High School in the Harukou semifinals. On steeled wings, Kageyama Tobio leaps up and passes the ball with more precision than Hajime's ever seen before, resulting in one of those freak quicks he's grown annoyingly too used to seeing this year. Hell, even Hinata Shouyou, _chibi-chan,_ as Oikawa would call him,lands with a sort of snappy grace Hajime has never recalled before, all of which leaves him with this queasy feeling in his stomach.

(" _Ah, didn't you hear?"_ Hajime had heard from someone outside in the lobby not ten minutes ago, between the vending machines and the men's first floor bathroom. _"About those two first years on Karasuno? They're both at forty-five lives."_

_"Oh, is that so? Weren't they both at the fifty mark at interhigh? How'd they both lose five lives over the summer?"_

_"I heard they went through tough times during training. They bicker a lot on court, too, don't they? Maybe they got into a fight or something. Five bad fights."_

_"And you know types like them. Restless."_

_"Oh yes, restless, for sure._ ")

Hajime stares over at his team captain. Oikawa's hands clench, tight and curled at his sides, before falling languid and ready to go on. He exhales all things tenuous.

"Don't mind, don't mind," Oikawa tells the rest of the team from the front line, voice like a freshly plucked leaf in the wind. Calm and just a little bit ruffled. Maneuvered to be just so. His eyes dart back to the back end of the court where usually takes his reigns, almost falling in line with the fans calling for a string of service aces next time around, but he does not linger too long on the want.

The ball comes back over the net. Oikawa pads the ball with raised arms, catapulting it towards Kindaichi to spike next. When he does, the ball makes a booming thud on the ground, and Hajime can't help but feel his heart leap up in the process. At this, he catches it in his throat, forces it back down, and uses the extra weight of its descent to keep climbing up anyway. Because for all their years of trying, of falling just a bit _fucking_ short, he knows he can bear the pressure more than anyone. He has to, when he knows that every single misstep counts. At this possibility, Hajime eats up all the heavy mass in his chest, makes it into armor, and runs up to the net despite the constant call to crumble.

Hajime catches glimpses of the other team in blurred little motions—thick glasses, a closely-shaved head, the orange jolt of a libero in motion, freckles and an annoying serve—and grins at all the certain fire in their eyes. _We want to win,_ they're all saying.

And Hajime thinks, while diving back for the ball, _'well, so do we,'_ as a team, as an ace, as a kid who just really loves to play. _'So do I.'_

When Hajime gets back up from the hardwood, he looks back at his own team, _the one and only Seijou_ , his home for the past three years (a place he might _always_ call home, actually) and sees the same blazes in the boys he's come to know, growing higher and higher each second. Proud and scared and ready to soar. It is only a glimpse in a match's frenzy, one he catches when he jumps up towards the summit, but it is the best sight in his pilgrimage, his journey to the top of the net as the team's ace, a place where he'll make the score 27-26 into 28-26. It is place where he'll wear his armor, feel light despite it, and bring them victory.

"Iwa-chan!"

Connecting to Oikawa's toss and bringing it down in a fury, Hajime does just so.

28-26, second set, in favor of Seijou.

 

**_  
_**

 

**.04**

**don’t cry, hajime,**

**for you have the sky ahead**

**to fly with tooru.**

 

Hajime usually doesn’t believe in things that call themselves _perfect,_ because improvements can always be made and change is always abound, but he thinks, as Oikawa tosses the ball from the far side of the court with his hands up, back slamming into the fold-up chairs behind him, that they might come close to that today. _Perfect._ Hajime already has his arm up when the ball comes spinning in perfect retrograde in front of him, as if heaven and hell and the continents between have aligned for this moment _,_ because victory is theirs for the taking, even if it took three sets and countless rallies. When Hajime feels the curve of the ball hit the heart of his palm with practiced precision (and _fuck_ have they practiced this _over_ and _over_ again, sunrise to sundown), he almost wants to cry about the spike. He dares to call it _perfect, fucking perfect_ —

—but watches Karasuno take the set, anyway, to end this third world war.

It starts when their captain, another third year, receives the spike, _that beautiful, perfect spike,_  with a practiced resilience of his own. Hajime feels a piece of that armor fly off him when he rebounds and exhales, watching the ball fly up, never touching the ground on the other side. Again, Hajime sees pieces of Karasuno in blurs when he tries to compose himself for this last set. _Number ten. Two setters. A kouhai, Kageyama Tobio. The ball, reaching him for the toss._ This is it. Hajime watches Oikawa fly to the back, because he must know where the ball will go. _Kageyama_ to _chibi-chan_ to _Oikawa_ , who will receive the ball and keep things under control.

 _Onward_ , _onward, onward._ This is the only place Hajime can go. Nevermind about _perfect_ , or the things that could’ve been. _Don’t cry._ Hajime thinks about the ball, reaching from one side of the court to the other. He rewinds, thinking about all the time spiking and spiking and spiking. He pictures himself, striking the ball down, unhindered. The things that should’ve been.

_Don’t you dare fucking cry, Hajime._

Quickly snapping back into things, Hajime reaches up to block number ten in a line with Kyoutani and Kindaichi at his side. Kageyama snaps the ball from his palms and _the little giant_ stares ahead, hitting it past their wall and finding Oikawa in a ricochet off his well-worn wrists. For a moment, all the world falls silent, cold, like winter has come much too early, when Hajime feels a sliding shiver run down his back.

The whistle blows and the match officially ends. The team begins to pick themselves off the floor. All of Hajime’s armor, battered, comes off when he walks up to the net to shake his hands. The least he can do is offer a nod of a head and eye contact. _It’s the right thing to do,_ he thinks, without really doing much of that. The mechanisms of _good sportsmanship_ are second nature to him by now, but his mind runs elsewhere. _Onward. Oikawa’s toss. Perfect spike._ He grits his teeth when he can’t stop them from shaking, and he resolves to just stare down at the floor after all of the pleasantries are exchanged.

_Onward. Oikawa’s toss. Perfect spike. I could have been able to score with that. I **should** have been able to score with that._

_Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry._ It is what he tells himself with every step. **_Don’t you dare fucking cry, Hajime._**

But when the armor peels away completely, he lets himself erupt anyway. Hajime bites down on his lip and cranes his head lower than more, burying himself in something devastated. He burns in it, even if it’s only for as long as it takes to put their equipment away and leave the court, and fails to hide his miseries in favor of the face he should keep. Bowing his head still, he keeps his eyes wide open, adrenaline settling into something he can manage, but it still doesn’t get any easier. It never, ever does. Hajime wonders if his ribcage has widened, bones jutting against the thin graft of skin. Inhale. ‘ _Just what sort of ace am I?’_ he asks. At this, he almost forgets to exhale.

But Hajime remembers to breathe when Oikawa’s hand meets his defenseless back. In flinching, Hajime finds that his touch is sure, steady, like he’s still making service aces, and Oikawa never ends up looking anywhere but forward after that.

 

**_x_ **

 

(It takes a little while for Hajime to follow after him, but he does nonetheless. _Of course_ he will, even if he’s almost too miserable to let himself walk, because as upset as he is, that feeling comes up again— _proud_ , in the strangest sense, of his boy under the blankets, even if he doesn’t want to admit it. At this, Hajime swallows down his remaining tears, lets them run again anyway when they leave the gym, and tells himself that he’s just making up for the ones Oikawa’s not crying.)

 

**_x_ **

 

“And then, that Ushiwaka bastard had the nerve to tell me I made a mistake coming to Seijou, like he does _every time_ we run into him,” Oikawa whispers to Hajime that same night, when they’ve both kept to themselves for a much-needed _night of unwinding_ , trading in wooden chopsticks and video game controllers for the feel of held hands. Hajime, who swears his eyes haven’t blistered after crying, just lies back on his bed and lets Oikawa kiss his sore spots with the lights off, nothing but the slight glare of a street lamp to guide their movements. After a small laugh, Oikawa just flops over to the side of the _too-small_ bed and glazes over at the ceiling, relaxed but not quite content, judging by the minor raise of his shoulders. He almost startles Hajime with a short huff of a sigh before tucking a chin on the latter’s shoulder, letting the conversation drop completely.

Hajime has to admit he still isn’t in a talking mood (minus the small _yes’s_ for extra pork on his ramen and the phone call home to his mother) but he knows Oikawa understands; after all, it’s not like he’s ready to meet the crowds right now, either. They just both let themselves have each other, slow and steady and comfortable, a private limbo for those who’ve lost. Realizing the mournful peace of it all, Hajime just closes his eyes, admits that his eyes _do_ feel awfully strained from crying, and wonders if he should just fall asleep right here and now.

"Iwa-chan," Oikawa calls after Hajime after a little while, when the neither of them can actually fall asleep.

"Yeah?" he answers, in turn.

"You know what we did today?"

Hajime smiles, the tinge of bitterness all too fresh on his tongue. "Lose at playoffs?"

"Hm— _yeah_ , I guess," Oikawa says, turning to face him with a roll of his eyes. A tuft of brown hair falls over his face, lemon-scented from his shampoo, and Hajime just pushes it out of the way in turn.

"Is that not the answer you're looking for?" Hajime asks.

"Well, there's no use denying it either, is there? We lost."

"Get to your point."

Oikawa sighs. "You know what else I did today?"

With a shrug, Hajime says, "I don't know. Tell Ushiwaka to _get lost_?"

"Can't you get more creative than that?" Oikawa whines. "I already told you that."

"Just tell me, then. I'm too tired to think."

There is a small hum and roaming eyes, like Oikawa's got his eyes on a hanging mobile up above. _Seeing stars in place of the plaster above._ "When I fell asleep on you on the bus today, I think I drooled on you," he remarks finally. "And I stole a piece of roast pork from your ramen bowl at dinner."

"Oh," Hajime says, hardly remembering either of these things.

"Usually, you'd tell me, _get off me, droolkawa!_ Or _stop stealing my protein, thiefkawa! Fourkawa, you're unbelievable!"_ Oikawa continues, putting on his best impression of him with a puff of his chest and gruffness in his voice. "But I didn't hear any of that today. Not even once."

Hajime blinks into something sunken, smile trying to form before faltering spectacularly. At the sight, Oikawa's falls too, just in the slightest, before rising back up, insistent on staying.

"It's hard to scold you when you tried your best out there today," Hajime tells him.

"You, too."

"I know."

Silence eats up the room again and Hajime realizes how much it hurts to stay still. To fight it, and because the stillness probably kills him, too, _because they should still get to play and play and play,_ Oikawa kisses him in small pecks, lingering and breathy and everything Hajime could want to lift him out of limbo. They were never meant to lay still. Sitting up against the headboard and taking Oikawa onto his lap, Hajime runs his hand against the back of head, presses into him more desperately with his kisses, _onward,_ and nearly bites onto the other boy's bottom lip. Oikawa wraps his arms around Hajime and continues on until he can't, catching his breath against the curve of a heated cheek.

"Do you know what I wanted to do today, Iwa-chan?" Oikawa asks, nearly collapsing on top of Hajime, voice small against the shell of his ear. When Hajime lets his hands glide up his setter's back, he realizes just how much he's shaking in his care. It is whole body cry, without the tears to show for it.

"Yeah?"

"I wanted to spend the night with you to celebrate winning. I even planned it this morning, because I was sure this would be the year. I told myself, _I'll walk home with Iwa-chan after dinner and hide with him under the blankets until sunrise._ "

Hajime looks up at Oikawa and tucks more of his hair behind his ear.

"What? Are you saying this to make me feel better?" he asks, relenting a real smile, no matter how small it may be.

Oikawa sighs and says, "you know, we _both_ lost today. What makes you think I don't want to feel better, too?" When he leans forward and plants another kiss on Hajime's lips, the sighs that come with them are full of longing. "How self-centered of you, Iwa-chan," he continues on, when Hajime lifts the end of Oikawa's shirt and raises it over his head.

"Well, I hope you'll still have me anyway," Hajime actually finds the will to joke, but heaviness gongs against his chest when he says it.

"I guess I will today," Oikawa tells him in turn, in teasing. "And the day after. _Aaand_ the day after that. Maybe even the day after _that_ , if you want."

Hajime smirks, feels his chest swell and swell and _swell_ , and ends up pulling Oikawa closer. "Come here, then."

The sound of Oikawa's laughter, sweet and sincere and just a little shaky, is enough to bring Hajime out his doldrums, millimeter by millimeter. The touch of bare skin, every stroke and wave across the surface, feels like static cling on his fingertips. And when Oikawa says it, _Hajime, Hajime, **Hajime** , _rising up in something that might almost cry, but won't, it feels like remembering how to fly again.

(No, that certainly can't be it. Not at all. With Oikawa Tooru around, Hajime remembers he's never stopped in the first place. He thinks he never will.)

 

**_  
_**

 

**.05**

**sweep low for the rest,**

**but when morning comes, look up**

**and rise up once more.**

 

**_  
_**

 

In the morning, when the two of them get into an argument over the issue of hogged blankets, Oikawa insists he won't speak to Hajime for the rest of the day. Hajime throws a sock at him on his way out the door, resists the urge to scold him further— _"who told you to sleep naked anyway? You know it gets chilly in the morning!"_ —and clicks his tongue in something light. Oikawa just lies back in bed, pulling the blankets up over himself and leaving a sharp glare in Hajime's wake.

At this, Hajime picks up his Aoba Johsai jacket off the ground, slings it over his shoulders, and meanders back to the bedside. He sits down on the edge, leaving the bundle of covers untouched, and flicks Oikawa's exposed forehead. He gasps over _the audacity, the temerity_ of it all, and yanks Hajime by the hem of his jacket as petty vengeance. Slumping back down on the mattress, Hajime just sticks close to Oikawa and tells him, in cleaning the slates, in clearing the clouds, to come start his morning.

In return, Oikawa just flips the covers off himself, asks Hajime to get his jacket off the ground too, and tells him to practice tosses with him later.

"You know, for next time," Oikawa says with a shrug.

_Because there's always, always next time._

 

**_x_ **

 

The next time Hajime and Oikawa are standing at a mailbox together, it is not surrounded by wildflowers, the sound of leaving trains, or any implications of cosmic delivery. Autumn arrives full on, a week after their loss to Karasuno, and Oikawa and Hajime are at the post office two blocks away from their high school, sealed security deposits in hand. Different handwritings mark their envelopes (as Oikawa's is always neater, but left in a mess of crooked address lines, while Hajime's might seem messier but at least he writes in straight rows.) Oikawa laughs at Hajime's choice of teddy bear stamp while Hajime just rolls his eyes at the _commemorative Tikachu collector's edition_ one Oikawa's chosen, and he comes to the realization that these differences don't matter.

What matters is that they'll both be in together by next spring, arguing about those (mostly) reconcilable differences, about a billion tiny things Hajime will just forget about by the end of the day. Because at _the end of the day,_ sitting with Oikawa in an apartment in Tokyo he can't dare imagine just yet, they'll get to be together.

"One, two, three!" Oikawa counts, just like promised.

So, with no other resolve needed, Hajime and Oikawa drop their letters down the chute. Tokyo, here they go, and together they shall stay, past all victories and losses and the changing of the seasons.

 

**_x_ **

 

_Dear obaachan and ojiichan,_

_It's getting chillier here in Miyagi, so it's been getting harder to get up and write you letters in the morning because my hands get so cold, but I thought it was time to send you another letter. Practice has gotten less intensive since I finished tournament season, so I don't have any excuses to skimp out on them now, huh?_

_Anyway, I'm just writing to tell you that I officially signed to play at Hosei University, in Tokyo! I'm still a little sad about not getting to play in high school anymore, and I still think we could've gone all the way to the top, but I think it's just best to keep moving forward. It's something I've come to learn over the years, and something I hope I never stop learning._

_(Ew, mushy. Your grandson is getting too sentimental.)_

_(Or determined to try. That's not so bad, is it?)_

_-Tooru_

 

**_x_ **

 

“Now that your tournament is over, have you thought about Tokyo more?” Hajime’s mother poses the question, right in that restful place just after dinner and right before a long session in the bath. “You should really try to get an apartment soon.”

Hajime sits up from his place under the kotatsu, continues to pull on Oikawa’s bracelet like it’s a part of him, and nods serenely. _Tokyo_. _Tooru._ None of it seems so far off anymore, and he cracks a smile into his sleeve when his mother leaves the room.

 

**_x_ **

 

On the back deck under the high-hanging birdhouse, Hajime breaks out the classifieds, a couple of listings on his phone, and a blank notepad to take notes. Absentmindedly drawing flowers on the margins, Oikawa sits up on the hardwood and groans, kicking his feet up on the ground below and brushing up a cloud of dust in his wake. Hajime offers him a scowl when he lets their volleyball roll away towards the adjoining alley up ahead.

"Don't cause trouble," he says, pulling Oikawa by the ear and making him wince. "We still have to find an apartment, and you'll be the reason we don't get one."

Shrugging, Oikawa looms closer and snatches away the classifieds, eyeing them suspiciously with squinted eyes. "It's _Tokyo_ , Iwa-chan. We're never going to run out of our pick of apartments, you know."

"Don't you want to be comfortable? Instead of scrambling around at the last minute?"

"How hard can it be to book two apartments?" Oikawa asks, looking for the best way to fold the newspaper into a paper airplane.

"Who said I'm looking for _two_ of them?" Burying a stare in his phone screen, Hajime still feels Oikawa's eyes go wide as wide can get. He mashes his lips together, suppressing the urge to get giddy, because it's just _Oikawa,_ and it would be the most natural thing, to move in together—

" _Iwa-chan,"_ Oikawa says his name like a gasp anyway. "You want to... _live_ together?"

Hajime frowns up at him away from his phone, abandoning modesty and the tendencies to hide a rapidly reddening face.

"What?" he asks next. "I thought it'd be a given, because we'd be saving a ton of money that way, and your mom wouldn't have to worry so much about her _baby boy_ wreaking havoc in the city _,_ but if I was wrong about that, then that's fine, too," he continues on, rambling on in nervousness. He can’t place the feeling at first, but then he gets it, _really, really_ gets it—because _fuck,_ he's asking Oikawa, _Oikawa Tooru_ of all people, to move in with him, and it's hitting him like a barreling train during a 8.0 magnitude earthquake. Hajime trails off, realizing he has no idea what he's talking about anymore, but that the bottom line is, _yes, we should definitely live together, because together is way to be,_ and he can’t imagine it any other way.

Oikawa's eyes light up like Hajime's planted a million sparklers on the lawn. He switches between confused (he _shouldn't_ be, but Hajime gets it) and absolutely elated, smile bursting at the seams. At the idea, he gets up from the steps, leans over to kiss Hajime once on the lips, and stands back up to cover his mouth with the back of his hand.

"So?" Hajime asks.

Lowering the palm from his face, Oikawa sucks in a long breath to say something, draws his scarf—red, this time—around his neck, and makes a run for it from the yard.

Downwind, the bird house jangles in his wake, and Hajime barely leaves three seconds between them before following Oikawa up the street.

_Onward._

"Hey! What—are you... _Oikawa!_ " Hajime asks, running after him, almost crashing when he makes a sharp turn at the corner. "Do you hate the idea that much?" he yells out, as he regains his footing, school loafers squeaking under him. Oikawa doesn't stop.

He throws his head up to the sky and picks up speed. "No! _Not at all!_ " He smacks his hands to the sides of his cheek, glancing back with wide eyes like he’s met Hajime in a myth. In his pursuits, Oikawa almost smashes into a delivery boy on a bike, continuing on downhill anyway. At some point, Hajime watches him clench his fists at his sides and pick up speed, finding the nerve to giggle— _giggle,_ of all things—all along the way.

Hopelessly, Hajime just does the same. They must look ridiculous, as they’re prone to be, but they'll go on anyway.

"Stop running! Hey, _fuck,_ slow down! Come on!” he yells for Oikawa, past the confused storefront patrons, the shopkeepers sweeping their blocks. Oikawa just laughs and laughs, shaking his head in breathless disbelief as he runs on, along the riverbank and the low-setting sun, the sound of him lost under the call of an oncoming train. A line of trees dots the mountain pass in the horizon, as the soft smell of tea leaves, the scent of camellias, imprints itself in Hajime’s senses. That song plays again in his head, a solo piano, gentle on the verge of frenetic, and it is here where Hajime decides it can be both.

 _Faster—_ Oikawa just runs faster, flies freer, right over the tracks where they had died together at the onset of their third year at Seijou.

"Tooru!"

When Hajime has to stop to catch his breath, the boom barrier lowers and separates the two of them. At this, Oikawa only runs a few meters ahead before realizing that Hajime isn’t following after him. He stops, looking over his shoulder, keeping eyes on Hajime with the warmest smile he’s seen in a while.

The train sounds, coming closer between the two of them. Looking down the tracks, Oikawa takes the precaution he didn’t have last time and steps back a bit farther away from his side of the gate. He takes his air there, huddled over bent knees, hidden in his blush-red scarf. Hajime wants nothing but to reach him already, past every limitation.

“I’m happy,” Oikawa says, out of nowhere, shy, but loud.

“ _What?_ ” Hajime can’t quite hear.

“I’m so happy, _I’m not sure what to do with myself!_ ” Oikawa tells him again, just as the barreling train comes between them, and Hajime can only see him in between the flip-book spaces between connected cars. He wonders if Oikawa can see just how hard he’s grinning, so wide he has to bite down on his bottom lip to stop himself from breaking it altogether. On the other end, Hajime thinks Oikawa might still be laughing. _I’m happy._ What a thing to say. Oikawa must not realize what things like _I’m happy_ can do to Hajime.

“I’m going to come get you, when this stupid train passes!” Hajime tells him, on the verge of yelling so Oikawa can hear him on the other side. “You can’t run from me this time!”

Oikawa manages to hear him through the commotion anyway. At the call, he rises up on his toes, mouths something Hajime has to make out by the reading of lips, and says, _‘who says I’m running?’_

_‘I’m right here!’_

And when that train passes and the boom barrier lifts on both sides, Oikawa is the one to come crossing back, arms wide open with feet tripping into perfect place.

 

**_x_ **

 

_Dear obaachan and ojiichan,_

_You know how I complained about my hands being too cold in the last letter?_

_Well, I think this winter’s going to be okay, actually. Especially when I think I know what’s ahead._

_(Alternately, is it a crime to feel this happy?)_

_-Tooru_

 

**_x_ **

 

“So, have you found a place yet?”

With autumn shifting into the bite of winter, Matsukawa shuts the window closed and blows into his chilled hands, all before settling into his second round of lunch for the day. Hajime hasn't even touched his yet. Instead, he places his glances outside, at Oikawa and his tosses to Yahaba once again, who's comically setting the ball with mitten-wrapped hands. Oikawa laughs too hard for someone who’s training the starting setter-to-be.

Hajime turns away from the scene when he realizes Oikawa has everything under control anyway. “Still looking,” he answers.

“What? Don’t know what to get?” Matsukawa asks, sipping at a canned coffee. “I get it. My sister’s a uni student right now overseas, and it’s so hard deciding on things. Rent _,_ rooms, location. What a hassle.”

“It’s headache inducing,” Hajime drones on.

“I’d say.”

“Especially when you want to get it _just right_ , you know?” Hajime continues fondly, perhaps without meaning to.

With a frown, incredulous more than anything, Matsukawa just looks out the window with Hajime this time and offers a short, little sigh.

“You’re actually a huge sap about things, aren’t you, Iwaizumi?”

 

**_x_ **

 

When Hajime goes for his usual run in the morning, snow dusting the path, he runs down the mountain pass, sees the road workers block off one of the main roads, and encounters the sign strung up between two trees. **_Camellia Road, coming this spring._** Cupping his hands to his lips, he expels a warm breath, hides the smile under the cloth, and makes a mental note to come visit with Oikawa when the flowers bloom.

For now, he’s just excited to count down to the new year tonight, wishes already in mind for the local shrine. He runs off, reaches into his pocket to make sure his letter is still in place, and continues on.

 

**_x_ **

 

_“Prefecture officials have officially declared Camellia Road closed off to visitors until the summer season, after appropriate government inspection and scheduled photoshoots. Please be aware of road closures in the mountain passes, due to the delicate nature of the camellias and their following weakness to car exhaust, and that workers have been delayed in laying new asphalt down this season.”_

 

**_x_ **

 

The funny thing about spring in Miyagi is how it rises up slowly, much like ivy climbing up a brick wall, or a cat, slinking its way up a set of high stairs. Every morning, Hajime watches the temperature on his weather app rise in the tiniest degrees, little by little until he’s loosening his tie from the heat and wiping beads of sweat from his neck. He thinks the day of his graduation is no different, when he’s waiting for Oikawa outside the gym they’ve called home for the past three years, certificate in hand and key ready to turn in. With the slight gust ahead of him, he comes out from under the awning and examines the gym with what some might call nostalgia, secretly chiding himself for getting so sentimental already.

Hajime feels something queasy brew in his stomach, and a strange heat crawl along the edge of his ears, but he shakes off the feeling and casts a gaze to a sky on the verge of sunset. It is certainly the type that belongs to spring, a stratosphere that hasn’t made its mind yet—still covered in a light layer of clouds, trapped in cool hues of lavender and pearl-grey, the patches hiding above read sunny and blue, blinding like summer should be. Hajime usually finds it hard to breathe in such an in-between, that hollow scoop before warmer times, but he really can't complain when the _year-round's_ been so sweet to him already.

He laughs. He can't place why, because it's not like this year has brought him any more fortune than the others. Sixkawa became four last spring, and they never did go to nationals at Harukou. Still, Hajime thinks of all the little things—the matching bracelets, handwritten lists, chases on foot, perfect tosses from across the court—and counts his blessings.

(Well, no—he can't do just that. He presses them close to his chest, folds them away for good fortune, and prays for the best, for more these little things ahead, but tenfold.)

"Iwa-chan! Sorry I'm late!"

When Hajime snaps himself out his daze, he sees Oikawa coming from up the courtyard, already out of his school uniform and rolling a red cruiser bicycle at his side. It is brand new, polished and bright like seeing victory itself, and Hajime can't help but run up at the sight of it. He makes out the poorly-tied bow on the handlebar, watches Oikawa grin when they both see the same thing, and settles into that post-graduation haze that asks, with a hollowed pang, _'wow, did I really graduate today?'_

"Was this a gift from someone?" Hajime asks instead. "Someone from your fan club?"

"Thought you hated it when I bragged about the fan club," Oikawa says with a snide little smile.

"I make exceptions on days like this. Not even you can ruin it for me."

"How mean if you, Iwa-chan," Oikawa says with a shake of his head. He grips a hand on the handlebars below, untying the aqua-colored ribbon and pressing it into his pants pocket, perching himself right on the bike seat with a wistful little sigh. He smiles despite himself, eyes looming to the bicycle and back. In other words, _won't you come and join me, Hajime?_

"So, where is it from?" Hajime continues with the questions, setting himself down on the metal rack behind Oikawa and letting him pedal on up the courtyard. He makes out the gentle huff in Oikawa's breathing, because he _is_ pushing up the incline for the two of them, but he doesn't seem to mind the movement.

Once they make it out of Seijou, the roof of the second gym rising low in the spring sky behind them, _a goodbye, for now,_ Oikawa pedals faster and lets the two of them fly downhill, through the neighborhood.

"Everyone on the team wanted to get their captains a send-off present," Oikawa tells Hajime, "but Mattsun said the first years couldn't chip in enough to get us two bikes. _You'll have to share,_ he told me." He laughs at this and rides on, taking a turn at the corner and continuing down the alley of cobblestone, guiding Hajime along the riverbank and over the train tracks, all towards the peaks of the mountainside. When he rides on, there's still no sign of strain on Oikawa's part as he carries the both of them, and Hajime muses that it's like he was never, ever meant to stop.

"It's not so bad, sharing." Hajime says, resting his head on the small of Oikawa's back. "Even though it's you, I can imagine much worse."

Up above, the sun peeks out from behind the clouds, promising a last glimpse of light before descending for the night.

"So, would you like to share this bike with me, Iwa-chan?" Oikawa asks, looking up the road, at the winding mountain pass ahead.

"I've been sharing a lot of things with you, haven't I?" Hajime counters. Up ahead, at the top of the steepest hill in town, a _notorious_ climb meant to test the first years during summer training, Hajime catches the glimpse of a broken chain draped along the tree. **_Welcome to Camellia Road_ ,**written on a nailed sign, says hello to the two boys with how it wavers in the breeze.

Oikawa pushes himself up against the handlebars and calls out, _"here we are!"_ like he's just struck gold, determined to get up to the very top. He talks endlessly about stringing camellias in Hajime's hair, how he'd like to pick some of the leaves for his grandmother in heaven, how he'd like to stay here all night, even when it gets too cold for his delicate fingers, because life can be unfair—” _really, really unfair”—_ and he knows he has to cherish every single good part that comes their way. _“I want to keep doing more, Iwa-chan!”_ Oikawa talks and _talks_ , struggles a bit more up that hill on his way up, but he doesn’t break a sweat. Onward, onward, onward. _Fourkawa’s being forthright._

_“Because it’s all far from over, isn’t it?”_

Raising himself up from the seat, lifting like he really has learned to tower, glints of sun peek through the scattered brush of budding trees. For a moment, Hajime thinks the light looks like a crown on Oikawa, gold and brilliant for the likes of his favorite _high-flying_ boy, but he knows a king isn’t just what he’s had all this time.

It's when Hajime sees the stretched wings of Oikawa’s back, constantly pushing, _pushing, pushing_ up that hill _,_ that he realizes what he's always had. For all the people who see a grand king, or a golden boy, or someone with a _questionable personality,_ Hajime has known the menagerie inside Oikawa since the start, his kaleidoscopic, _catastrophic_ array of everything and anything that could be. He sees the high-flier, the boy with the best jump serve the prefecture’s ever seen, the devoted team captain and the incessant charmer, a kid with a mind as quick as the strike of lightning. All of it flips through Hajime’s head a million meters a second, and he knows he never wants to reach the end.

At this, Hajime just hops off the bike and the steepest part of the cliff, pushes at the back of it, and makes sure that Oikawa keeps going. At the thought of everything that’s about to change, the things they’ll face together, Hajime feels his ears pop from the pressure, his heart pound, and his voice resound in the hills.

_“Let’s keep going!”_

And when they reach the top, Oikawa looks down at the bushels and bushels of wild red camellias below, takes pride because he works hard for what he wants, even when they say he can’t have it all, and takes Hajime by the hand to admire the view. _See the world with me, Hajime,_ his lowered eyes say, like this is the start of everything.

“So, what was that about sharing before?” Hajime asks.

Oikawa loses that smile, letting it falter, swoop down because that’s what people do, at least in small intervals, and lets it rise back up on his face. Because Hajime knows courage cannot exist without a heart of fear. Because in the half-opened boxes back home, ready to go in less than a week’s time,  there are also the parts Oikawa tries to hide away—the alien band-aids he used to hide under shirt sleeves, the mix tapes teeming with motivational speeches, some of the letters he's never had the will to send. All at once, Hajime sees a daredevil in dulcets, a champion for all those still willing to try, _to change_ , someone who might want to cry, but won't anymore. All at once, Hajime sees Tooru.

It has always been Tooru.

In the small patch of remaining sun Oikawa's sitting in, Hajime takes note of the bead of dew in the corner of his eye, how it looks like he's been crying secretly all this time, but knows that that isn't it. Oikawa laughs lightly at nothing (or everything, depending on the constant stream of hurried thought in that head of his) and raises a hand for Hajime to join him. They get on the bike again, Oikawa leading, Hajime pressed close behind him, and take the leap, wheels turning down the steep and wide path.

And when they crash on the stripped road, heads knocking, _hard_ , on the concrete below, Hajime still smells nothing but camellias in the wind. Beside him, Oikawa’s eyes flutter open, blood getting in his lashes, but he’s still smiling because he has no reason not to.

 

**_  
_**

**.06**

**to perish in grace,**

**a camellia’s promise.**

**but also, to love.**

 

**_  
_**

 

_Hello ojisan and obasan,_

_It's Hajime, your grandson's friend. I'm not sure you remember me (because I doubt he even mentions me in his letters) but I remember visiting your house the day before we found volleyball for the first time. I was nine, I think, if memory serves me right. I remember pickled radishes and the way oba-san wrote in a notebook barely bigger than her hand, how Tooru looked when he said he was bored and wanted something new to do. I think we ran a lot that day, just because kids are bound to do that when they have a yard to play in, and I remember patching Tooru up after he fell and scraped his knee on the pointy end of a garden hoe. I’m just glad it wasn’t worse than that._

_The truth is, though, we don't sit around very often anymore. I guess we don't get bored, either. Because most times, with him, it is hard to stay still, whether we are playing or sharing a quiet evening together. Everyone says that volleyball is our game, and I’ll never deny that, but we’ve been pretty good at just keeping on the move. It’s hard to count, just how many times we’ve beat the odds. How we decide to live on, despite the times we lose._

_Anyway, I'm writing this letter to you because I wanted to ask something, just a single question, and I really hope I'm not being too forward. I don't usually write things like letters, but he and I have both died a couple of times and I think it's time to just get it out there, before we go to Tokyo together._

_ojisan, obasan—_

_Do you think I could have your blessings?_

_To be with Tooru for the long run?_

_-Iwaizumi Hajime_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeesh, first of all, sorry for the length of this chapter, but I thought it was important to expand on things because I believe their last match in harukou is an important component to explore, and I wanted to bridge between the end of their canon-related arc to the post-canon one i will soon be starting on after this chapter!
> 
> This chapter was both fun and frustrating to write, with all of the graduation stuff going on irl for me (and I guess it kinda hits close to home for me, in some aspects)...I wanted to achieve the right mix of courage and acceptance that Oikawa has built up by now, all while making sure that he never loses that bit of vulnerability I think he still has (because fear is not something that goes away all at once, right?)
> 
> Anyway, the inclusion of the red camellia was important as a motif for me because it apparently symbolizes two things: love and, interestingly enough, "to perish with grace." I think, in short, that this can allude to a lot of things: the killing of doubt, their remaining lives...I think to accept change, ultimately, is to perish (in a way) with grace. ANYWAY, i'm rambling on again.
> 
> Come find me on @levkens on tumblr or companions.tumblr.com! :^)


	6. the witching hour

_Dear obaachan and ojiichan,_

_Since Iwa-chan’s taking too long in the void again—well, not really in all honesty, I’m just too quick to come back—I thought it’d be nice to write to you too while I wait. As you may or may not know, your petulant grandson has found himself at three lives recently (very, **very** recently, actually) and mom's kinda mad at me so I thought of hiding a little while here. Oddly, despite the looks I got about being threekawa now, I don’t feel that bad about things—or I’m trying not to, at least. Because there are a lot of good things ahead and there is no time to mope._

_Ah, if only I could just calm that bad feeling in my stomach, the achiness in my joints. I can't stop shaking! Perhaps I should start taking more vitamins. Omega-3’s, maybe? You two would know, right? I feel that once someone gets older, you gain not only wisdom, but a better understanding of daily supplements. (Oops—look at me rambling on. Bad habits live on.)_  

_Anyway, I can sense something in the air. Kind of like a breeze, picking up out of no where, and in my experience, that usually means Iwa-chan is returning soon. Hopefully he’s not too mad that I lost my bracelet on the other side. (Don’t tell him I got really panicky about it for a couple of minutes, actually...I think things like that are apt to happen, with mementos and all.) Maybe I’ll make us a new set before he comes back, since everyone’s bound to misplace their things in the void, right?_

_Well, wish me luck. I hope to write again soon._

_(And if you’re worrying about me up there, because I know you probably are, I swear everything’s okay. I’m okay.)_  

 _(And I hope I will be, for a long time to come.)_  

_-Tooru_

 

**_x_ **

 

When Hajime lands in the void after his seventh death, he doesn’t see Oikawa, or hear his voice, or feel his hand in his. There is no trace of him, not a single bit of the boy named Oikawa Tooru, and Hajime can only make out one thing: the smell of camellias. He races on, bare feet cutting through the shallow shore of water, right until he can’t run anymore and his lungs are devoid of everything but fire. And when Hajime sees nothing but the abrupt line of the horizon in front of him, an undercurrent of blue below the hazy sky, he knows this emptiness only means he has to go back. _You can’t waste your time here, because everything is ahead of you. You have to go back to Tooru._ He had seen him bleed back there, amongst the blur of passing petals. Hajime had seen him smile, despite the oncoming of red.

“Tooru.” The name slips out like an anchor tied to him, dipping low right off his tongue. _Tooru._ Shoulders, falling and rising over the handlebars. The flakes of gold sun in his hair. The tick-tick-tick of a bike spoke. The point of his delicate nose, peering past an impossible peak. More pieces of him come flying back into the haze of Hajime’s head when he picks up his pace again, and he thinks, after all of his reveries, no matter how fast it all comes in, that he cannot do with just the ghost of Oikawa Tooru.

So when Hajime reaches on and on and _on_ , he lets his hand slide down the other arm to feel something tangible. Past all the mourning bracelets he’s weaved before, he remembers his last birthday and Oikawa’s gift to him. A treasure made of braided thread, a constant reminder of invincibility.

“ _Tooru._ ”

Hajime’s breaking point comes when he realizes that he can’t feel Oikawa’s bracelet on his wrist. It should be just so, _just business as usual,_ honestly,because it isn’t a peculiar thing to lose things in the void. Hajime’s father had lost his lucky necktie when he died in a car accident in his twenties, and Hanamaki occasionally complains about the pairs of _favorite_ socks he’s lost in transit. His mother (as if one can control such things) often tells Hajime to keep his wallet out when he’s on the verge of death. But Oikawa’s bracelet is not a few lost credit cards, a _favorite_ anything, or a good luck charm. It is a promise. It is precious. It gives him pride.

It is pure vandalism against the gods that say they're time is almost up. _I’m going to be with him for the long run, no matter what you throw at us,_ the knotted twine laughs right back, every time Hajime tightens it around his arm, and every time Oikawa tugs at his own in habit.

So when Hajime feels nothingness around his wrist, like an orbit fallen out of a loop, he is reminded of the empty spaces and the deeper gaps they leave. He lets himself be defeated for a moment, because that sinking sensation is apt to happen with lost mementos, but he tells himself he'll just have to make another set for the two of them. _We will just have to make our own invincibility._

"I want to go home now," Hajime tells the sky, remembering that people can be on the verge of tears here, too.

 _"I want to go home to Tooru."_  

Never without bite, the winds sweep in, low and scolding.

 

**_x_ **

 

_Dear obaachan and ojiichan,_

_You know what’s kind of cool? In my life, I have died three times with Hajime. We’ve even gone together in our the last two deaths._

_That’s not so bad, I think. Do you think that will keep happening?_

_-Tooru_

 

**_x_ **

 

When Hajime does blink back into existence, shutting out that urge to cry, Oikawa's already waiting under the high-hanging birdhouse in his suit and tie, too. _Just business as usual,_ because Oikawa's been here the past couple of times to wait for Hajime. Without so much as a word, Oikawa breezes into a smile and beats Hajime in forging another forever, tying it easily around his wrist like it was always meant to be this way.

And when those hands mash together, Hajime takes the other bracelet into his possession, slides it up Oikawa's arm, and closes his eyes in a small embrace. He ignores how close they are to the edge, throws his fears down the forming chasm at the pit of his stomach, and inches forward to receive him. 

“Welcome home,” Oikawa tells him, muffled against the cloth of Hajime’s suit. Nonetheless, the words leave his mouth like a door opening in the evening, a call to return to a house’s familiar light.

 

**.07**

**i saw a bird cry,**

**after years of home, nesting.**

**(still, he was happy.)**

 

 

“Hajime.” 

When his mother says his name on the platform, train to depart in precisely seven minutes, the call itself sounds like parting. Hajime sucks it up, waits for her to say something next, and feels this odd mix of _ready-to-cry_ and _ready-to-leave:_ because for everything he’s built up in this world and everything he might be leaving behind, he never wants to count his mother in the latter, but he knows, _has always known,_ that his scope was never just their small town. Hajime’s mother, by her soft nods, the loosening grip of her tiny fingers, must know this, too. She blinks away her tears, crow’s feet at the creases because she’s getting older, because everybody does, but Hajime just thinks she looks as bright-eyed as ever. He convinces himself, through pure will, that he won’t make his mother cry twice today.

For good measure, and because he doesn’t care who sees, he lifts her hand up and hides a kiss behind it, resisting the urge to reminiscence. He takes a loss when he remembers her words, _"you're a lovely boy, Hajime,"_ said to him at the tender age of five, and wonders if he can still live up to such weight. 

“Watch out for yourself, _mister eighteen_ ,” she says to him this time, still cautious to joke after Hajime’s latest incident. She’s tough enough to, anyway. “Don’t you die on me anymore, okay?” she goes on, “and tell Tooru-kun to be careful, too.”

Hajime nods back. “You know we well,” he says to her, one foot already set in the train car. From inside, he makes out Oikawa’s silhouette, pulling out a wide-set bundle from a rustling plastic bag, line of an index finger pressed against his lips. For a last-minute plan, _Operation: Flowers for Our Mothers,_ Hajime thinks they've done a spectacular job in not screwing this all up. He guesses that Oikawa's already succeeded in giving his mother the pansies back at home, judging from curious one peeking from behind his ear, leaving just the last part of their short-lived mission.

Hajime grins hard when Oikawa joins him at the door, taking two-dozen’s worth of pink roses from him and leaning out on the platform to give them to his mother. When she smiles, she absolutely bursts into tears and takes them with all the feigned ease she can muster, shaking her head in disbelief. Her _thank you_ ’s are wisps of thin air.

"Tokyo, then," she chokes out, hugging the bouquet close to her chest. She shrinks, smaller and smaller behind the blooms. "Just the place for my two wonderful boys," a truth, a fact, but one hard to reaffirm. 

Too tongue-tied to say anything—because seeing his mother cry was the last thing on his agenda—Hajime only nods and lets Oikawa sling an arm around him at the last minute. He holds a peace sign up, strong enough for the two of them, and laughs like they're about to take off on an amusement park ride. _Veils raised,_ Hajime thinks, stiffening a lip, but it’s perfect for a time like this.

"You're going to see us in the spotlight soon, okachan, and then we'll buy you a whole garden! Peonies and rosebushes and cherry blossom trees. Anything you want.” 

“Anything, Tooru?” she asks, finding the will to raise an eyebrow at him.

Oikawa nods and pats Hajime on the back to get him to do the same. “Yep,” he tells her, like he really, really means it. “Except for camellias. I imagine we’re all sick of those, huh?” 

Hajime's mother laughs. Over the intercom, the attendant announces that the train will leave in three minutes. She looks back at her son, serene over a blistered gaze, all as if Oikawa brought bliss, and nods in a mother’s reluctant acceptance.

"A whole garden, huh?" she asks her son next, sighing. It is shaky and like a new ghost, reluctant to be heard.

With a nod, Hajime breathes out, "yeah, for all the trouble we’ve caused.” 

“Give me a field, then,” she quips, just as the intercom calls for any last boarders. She looks up the track, nods for Hajime and Oikawa to get on the train, and steps back on the platform in parting. “Make it an entire field,” she says again, “because _trouble_ is what you two do best, isn’t it?”

“Because trouble follows trouble,” Oikawa says, yanking Hajime closer to him and patting him on the head.

“Ah, but that might just be another word for _greatness_ , huh?” she asks next.

“You’ve always been terribly wise, okachan,” Oikawa continues on in lightness. “Are you sure Iwa-chan’s your son?”

Another shell of a laugh comes from her, eyes not meaning to shift, and Hajime knows she’s growing tired of this extended goodbye. Pushing Oikawa inside the train, he watches her wave with a free hand and come to the end of her _au revoir_. Hajime wants to tell her not to be so dramatic, that they’ll back better than ever, and that she’ll proud when he gets to that point on the high peak, but he knows what it means to say goodbyes. Goodbyes that you know are coming.

“Take care, you two,” she says. “and come back soon.”

 

**_x_ **

 

_Dear obaachan and ojiichan,_

_It’s Tooru again. Guess you knew that, though, because I honestly wonder if I’m the only one who writes to you. How is everyone doing today? Have you written any new poetry, obaachan? Be careful of sky squirrels, ojiichan. I hear they dig up radishes from vegetable gardens and sell them on the black market. (Just kidding! I’m just being silly as usual.)_

_Just to let you know what I’m doing, Iwa-chan and I are on the train to Sendai to visit some of the family before heading off to Tokyo. Maybe we’ll order something to eat and watch TV with my sister or go to Aoba Castle. I even promised Takeru a personal lesson on serves, but he got all excited that Iwa-chan was coming too, so I imagine I’ll be neglected._

_Anyway, I’m just writing because I realized something, and I thought I should share while Iwa-chan’s dozing off. I think he might be a little homesick already, which is to be expected because we left Miyagi this morning. (He looks cute while he sleeps though, which is nice because he usually frowns at me like an ogre!) All in all, I think he’ll be fine when we get off the train._  

_So to get to the point, and because I want to write this down before I let the thought drift away, I realized that Iwa-chan’s a lot like his mother. It doesn’t really seem like at first, because he honestly takes after his dad at first glimpse—you know, like kinda the strong type, a little mean, if you rub him the wrong way, but I think the rest of him is...different. I’m just thinking about this a lot because I just watched her leave us at the station, and I know she didn’t want to say goodbye, to let us go to Tokyo, but she did anyway. I think Iwa-chan does that, too. He insists on climbing and climbing and climbing, even though his knees are wobbly from the altitude. When he gives me shelter, he punches a hole in the roof so I can still see the sky. Because, more than anything, I think Iwaizumi Hajime wants to keep me, but he refuses to own cages._

_It's interesting, isn't it? This is just something I think about sometimes._

_-Tooru_

 

**_x_ **

 

“My brother’s down to three, Hajime-kun.” When she says this, Hajime has barely taken his first sip of tea in the den.

Oikawa’s sister— _onee-san—_ stares out the back at a blooming wisteria tree on the family’s property, smiles like she’s just asked about the weather, and looks back with heavy-lidded eyes. Outside on the back deck, Hajime spots Oikawa is watching a funny cat video with his nephew and sharing a plate of seedless, _not-quite-in-season_ watermelon, glimpsing up at the lavender billows as if he’s sharing secrets with Sendai’s lesser gods. 

“I know,” replies Hajime with all the gravity in the world.

“And I’m not exactly happy about that,” Oikawa’s sister says next. “No one in the main house is.”

“I know.” When Hajime repeats the phrase, feels terrible for doing so, because he thinks _I know_ —especially in excessive amounts—feels like backing up against a fence with no where to go. _I know, I know, I know, and yet, I can’t do anything about this. I know, and I’m trying to make it work._ He just takes a real sip this time, a nervous flood’s worth of a gulp, and ignores every instance to think about _three_ kawa.

“Tooru, Tooru, Tooru,” she singsongs.

“ _Tooru_ ,” Hajime lets himself mutter, in secret indulgence. A fond smile usually accompanies the word, and this instance is no exception. 

“We thought that maybe he’d be different, because he was always such a timid kid. When he was a baby, he’d fuss, but never quite cry, like he didn’t want to speak up. Like he had already learned to limit himself, somehow. I was young at the time, so maybe I’m just getting this all wrong, but sometimes I’d look him in the eye, this kid in his crib, and wonder if he’d grow up afraid.”

Hajime doesn’t say anything and looks back to his setter. He just watches Oikawa hand Takeru his phone, pace up the yard by himself, and stand under the leaning wisteria tree with eyes wide. He raises a hand up, fingers grazing the lowest cascade of petals, and spins just once, the hem of a light denim shirt going up with him, feet on unneeded tiptoes. _Afraid._ At _three_ , Oikawa has never looked better, and he wonders if his sister can make out the heart sewn on her brother's chest. He wonders if, to her, this spectacle is something to condemn.

“I think he did grow up afraid,” Hajime confesses, still keeping an eye on him, “because I don’t think stuff like that ever leaves you in the first place.” 

The woman’s laughter rises in the air, bitter but somehow sincere. It is a sound that doesn’t know what to be. 

“And yet, he wants to be all these things. Big city boy, olympic star. Someone who’ll make _thousands_ out of three.”

Silence follows and just Hajime nods along, but he finds it hard to move. He feels a swamp form in his chest, covering the space between bone and muscle, and he wonders if it’s possible for blood to thicken in a span of five measly minutes. He’s never really spoken to another Oikawa on the matter of lives—so when the words form on his tongue, that blatant urge to ask, _“do you blame me for how things turned out?”_ he stamps the sentiment out immediately. He tells himself not to go there. _Wade into this,_ Hajime tells himself at first, but Oikawa would probably yell at him if he ever asked the question out loud, head on a plate and cut to pieces. _Don’t ask the fucking question at all._

“You know, I don’t think he’d be around if you weren’t here to keep him on the ground,” she says after a while. Hajime exhales. Outside, Oikawa has carried Takeru towards the wisteria tree, helping him to reach one of the higher branches. 

“You give me too much credit,” says Hajime.

“Hm, _maybe_ , but who else can I thank? The aliens?”

“Never the aliens.”

 _“Okaachan! Look, look, I caught a ladybug!”_ Takeru smiles wide with a gap-toothed grin, still perched on Oikawa’s shoulders. Unable to wave, Oikawa just tilts his head to the side, nods right along, and tells Takeru to focus on collecting flowers for his mother. Oikawa’s sister sighs, shakes her head, and goes back to sipping her milk tea with shaking fingers. With every tremor, Hajime wonders if the sensation is a matter of premonition. 

“Sometimes, it’s hard to decide on how I feel about the gods,” she confesses to Hajime suddenly, much like her brother might, and at this, he stares on. In a world of believers, non-believers, Hajime doesn’t know what to categorize himself as. Most times, he just tells himself not to dwell on such mythic things, that shrine visits and occasional letters to heaven are enough to tap into whatever spiritual sense he might have, but no more. Hajime hates the idea of chasing after gods he can’t see. 

“And why is that?” he asks anyway.

“Well, there are times I want to curse them. There are honestly too many reasons to count, but sometimes I wonder, _why did I have to be born, nine years before him?_ Why does he have to move along a different course of life from me, along some path where I can’t protect him? Because, you know, I can certainly _try_ , I can offer guidance that someone a decade away can give from experience, _whatever that means,_ but it’s not the same as walking the same way. I guess that’s the part I want to curse the most.” 

“And what about the parts you don’t want to curse?”

The flick of her gaze peers up. Oikawa’s sister hums out something devious. 

“Are you fishing for compliments now, Hajime-kun?”

He frowns at the thought of doing so. “No.” 

“What a pure kid you are. Truly.”

“I still don’t understand.” 

"Shall I make it easy for you?" she teases. 

"I guess."

" _Yeah?_ " 

Hajime raises an eyebrow. "You know, you do remind me of your brother sometimes."

"I can still flirt, you know, even if I'm cooped up in the house all day." Oikawa's sister leans over the table, draws a zig-zag on the table with her finger, and presses herself into the bend of an outstretched arm. “Anyway,” she continues, “on that day my brother got struck by lightning for his first death, I wondered if the gods would bring him something kind to go with it. Getting struck by lightning is a rare thing, isn’t it? So when I saw him reach up to the sky, about to die, I begged, _please let him live for a long, long time. Let him live._ ”

“He didn’t, of course. I watched him go within the next hour, and I ran to the local shrine to denounce all the faith I had left. It was all such a dramatic time, you know, being a teenager and all, but I really meant it back then. For all the bad luck my family's run into, I said, _you've really done it now, you stupid gods! There's really nothing good left in this rotten world!_ " 

“And?”

“Things got better, naturally—as they're bound to do." 

"Did they?" Hajime asks in earnest, right on the brink of breathless. 

"Yeah. And you know why?" Oikawa’s sister asks, smile spreading across her face. Those light brown eyes, heavy-lidded like her brother’s can be, blink through the good and the bad, gaze caught between a stinging emptiness and something unbearably fond. 

"A week later, you came to introduce yourself at the house. _My name is Iwaizumi Hajime, pleased to meet you._ Obviously forced. You were annoyed because your mother made you walk over with a map of the neighborhood and some coupons for a _okonomiyaki_ place down the street _._ Still, I think we invited you inside—even though I thought you looked like the biggest brat back then—and heck, you even scared Tooru at first, I’m sure...but you know what's amazing? Something I'll never forget?"

"Yeah?"

"No matter how shy he was, within the day, Tooru was already calling you _Iwa-chan_." 

_"Iwa-chan!"_

To speak of the devil, Oikawa calls from Hajime from the yard, waves with a huge bundle of lavender wisteria in his arms, and beckons towards his divested phone so he can have a picture with his nephew. Hajime sighs, torn between getting the worst possible photo of Oikawa he can muster and listening to the rest of the story, but onee-san just waves him off and offers him the tiniest little nod. Hajime relents a sigh and looks back at Oikawa, yelling for him to wait a moment.

“So?” Hajime asks her. “Why is this so important? _Iwa-chan?_ What does this have to do with not hating the gods?" 

Without a word, Oikawa's sister lifts herself up from the table, leaves her tea, and makes her way back to the door to tend to the cake she's been baking in the kitchen. Before leaving, she looks over her shoulder and offers that familiar squint in her eye, well-worn but sincere. Hajime can't make out the line of her grin, but he tells himself there's one anyway; because for all the years he's never needed the affirmation— _is it okay, to let Tooru go on like this?—_ he thinks a few kind words would suit him well enough. It would carry him all the way to the city. At the promise of it, Hajime holds his breath, hopes that Oikawa's sister will leave him with more than _I'm not exactly happy with three_ and _there's nothing good left in this rotten world._  

 _"You're a lovely boy, Hajime,"_ his mother’s words resound. Hajime sorts through his memories. In the hazy mesh of his mind, spring to summer, he sees the last spike of his high school tournament career. ‘ _Just what sort of ace am I,’_ stinging his tongue. There are bracelets sliding up wrists, made and lost and made again, and nine to six to the mere three. He moves a thousand steps ahead, something Oikawa Tooru would usually do, and imagines the words, potentially said, like a checker piece flipping into a wrongly-crowned king on the other side. They are the words he usually shuts away, left only for rainy days and times spent under the high-hanging birdhouse.

 _You were a good thing once. Now, no more._  

_You have led Oikawa Tooru to the end._

Hajime swallows hard and shakes his head.

He cannot have these thoughts just before moving to Tokyo.

He cannot think about the meaning of _three,_ andhow that usually means a countdown to the last. _Three, two, one—_ deep breath. _That’s what it is._ He still finds none of the words to say, but all of the teeth to grit. At the sight of him, Oikawa’s sister tosses her head back out the open doors, joins Hajime in watching Oikawa take a selfie with his nephew—flowers in their hair, petals brushed upon cheeks. Hajime takes comfort in being mesmerized.

“Some people are born miracles, you know?” she observes, and Hajime almost forgets to listen. “And for that, I can’t hate the gods for good.” 

Getting up from the table himself, Hajime shuffles towards the yard, waves over to Oikawa, and raises his head up to the sky. Nerves pulse up his spine, bubbling and breaking into warmth. From there, Hajime finds the gall to walk on. 

“They don’t call him a golden boy just for anything, you know,” Hajime remarks at back at her, “even if I think _miracle_ is a little much.” 

“You really are too pure, Iwaizumi Hajime.”

Already half-absent from the confines of the house, one foot off the deck and hands, fingertips flying towards the atmosphere, Hajime watches Oikawa blink at him with something confused, wave back, and snap a picture of his own. He tilts that head of his, craning back in ease, and beckons for Hajime to join him under the late-spring sun.

“And what do you mean by that?” Hajime asks in parting.

“Well—that you’re mistaken when you think I’m talking about Tooru.”

 

**_x_ **

 

(Hajime boards the train from Sendai the next morning, Oikawa following right after, and he has to glue his face on the window sill so no one can see the size of his lingering smile. It refuses to die, like Oikawa’s annoying insistences on _road trip games_ , but Hajime just sits back and lets himself be thankful.)

 

**_x_ **

 

The era of _Kichijoji_ starts in the confines of a standard two-person apartment, empty but full of promise.

“I’m never drinking caffeine again,” Oikawa tells Hajime on their first day in the greater metropolitan area, sprawled out amongst the moving boxes on an unswept floor, basking in the breeze of his electric fan. Like a dance, his hands reach up, almost like he’s setting, at something the neither of them can see, sighs pressed out like he can hardly breathe. Hajime watches Oikawa lower one of those hands to sift his hair back, a peek of a squinted glance turning back to meet him.

And just like that, a smile spreads across Oikawa's face, even though things like _three_ are nothing to gander about. He likes the looks of him anyway. So just like that, Hajime presses the thought of _three_ out of his head quickly, even though he swears he can still feel the blood rush out of his ears from the fall sometimes. He sees the reddened blur of camellias flash right by him on blank walls. The smell of jasmine tea, on the stove, tastes like mountain pass air.

Like a taunt—a pretty one, Hajime will admit—the red bicycle leans untouched against the wall, but Oikawa peeks at it with little remorse. Hajime had forgotten about it in the whir of all things packing and unpacking, and he wishes it meant better tidings: to distract himself from heaviness, Hajime just drops the moving box in his hands, meanders over to Oikawa's place on the floor, and kneads his side gently with a bare foot. Ticklish as ever, Oikawa turns over and resists laughing, only to fail in the most spectacular fashion. He grabs onto Hajime's calf and drags him down onto the ground too, meeting him with a small kiss on the tip of his nose and a blinking glare, a half-serious attempt at being seductive.

"You're right," Hajime says with a flick to Oikawa's forehead. "Who told you to have a cappuccino before coming here, huh? You're jittery as all hell." 

Oikawa just lies back on the ground and smacks his cheeks until they resemble the pink part of peach skin. "I don't know," he tells him with a sigh. "I thought, _big city attitude,_ so that means coffee, right? _Espresso, Americano..._ " His voice trails off in trying to name the different kinds, and Hajime's convinced he's just making some of these names up by the end. 

"You don't do that when you've already had eight hours of sleep, you idiot," Hajime takes his turn in sifting through Oikawa's hair, letting the softest part of his palm graze the light sweat on his forehead. Like a house cat, huffy and discontent, Oikawa nuzzles into the touch and clicks his tongue.

"I hate this feeling," Oikawa breathes out, attempting to stretch out. Hajime just scoffs because he knows. It reminds him of that one time Oikawa snuck four whole gulps from his mother's cup of instant-mix coffee when they were kids, when curiosity was at high tide and boredom struck like a full moon. Afterwards, Oikawa wouldn't shut up about playing a game of _chase the alien,_ in which Hajime had the unfortunate role of _extraterrestrial._ He remembers the ups and downs of that afternoon, how Oikawa, _already_ a limitless ball of energy, had spun himself into a speeding comet, tearing through the house and the whole block's radius with scuffed elbows and the breathless resolve to _try absolutely everything_. 

On the floor, Hajime watches Oikawa's gaze wander all over the ceiling, chest heaving up and down, up and down, his body a too-small cage. In the same way Hajime's thinking about a thousand different things—paying the rent, picking his classes for the fall, learning the trains, finding things to do in the neighborhood of Kichijoji—Oikawa must have a million, billion thoughts running through the head of his, too. He might not be dashing up the hallway, or ripping through the boxes until everything's unpacked and put away, but Oikawa's restlessness, _caffeinated or not_ , persists like an old house's specter. It will remain, for better or worse, in the same way Hajime's stays with him, too—dormant, to allow for quiet moments, but never meant to dissipate. 

"It's like...you want to go everywhere at once, and you feel your head beat like a taiko drum because it's nagging you to do all those things," Oikawa sighs out, "but at the same time, there's so much of it, so you just end up lying on the floor because you don't know where to start."

"That's an interesting way to look at things," Hajime can't help but laugh.

"Like I said, never let me have coffee again," Oikawa says wilting. “I was just picking flowers yesterday, wasn’t I? _Perfectly at peace._ What happened, Iwa-chan?” 

"You’re _you_ ," Hajime drones on, deciding he'd like to take a break on the ground, too. He lowers himself onto the floorboards and presses a cheek to the cool surface, ready to pass out then and there, but he still bubbles up when Oikawa swoops in to kiss him, laughing, on the tip of his nose.

From there Oikawa stays close and hums out _a happy birthday,_ one almost forgotten with the commotion of moving out and in all day; the sound of his voice, delicate in only the most pointed way, intimate, makes Hajime's toes curl under him. He feels his face go red, and at the sight, Oikawa does too, completely losing any of its cool veneer. At once, with a desire to kiss Oikawa under the veils, Hajime wonders just how much sillier they can still get after two years of being together. This year, Oikawa insists there are no presents, but Hajime is happy enough here, at the chance to build a home.

(And when he discovers that empty apartments have an embarrassing amount of echo, Oikawa murmurs in his ear instead, _Hajime,_ like a present slipped under the table. Hajime tosses Oikawa’s shirt away like giftwrap, swoops in, and lets himself get carried away amongst the moving boxes, a mess of warmth and all things honest.)

 

**.08**

**tooru, remember:**

**if you are restless, my love,**

**he’s there. he is home.**

 

 

Within the week, Hajime and Oikawa know Kichijoji well enough to call back to their favorites, a growing list of things that Oikawa keeps, _impromptu_ , on his phone. For deep-fried mince meat cutlets, they go to Iseya, a restaurant near the south end of the station. Oikawa has had a recent habit of going to Tsuru’s Original Bean for his ill-advised double-shot cappuccinos, while Hajime has much preferred Ocharaka’s varied tea selection. Every other morning, at about 7:15AM, they go running on the east end of Inokashira Park, and keep on the southern water’s edge, near Benzaiten’s temple, for evening strolls. 

For all the sightseeing they’ve done, the places they’ve been to, something they have yet to agree on is Kichioji’s best view. Oikawa argues that it has to be Harmonica Alley at twilight, when the sky hangs a mighty cobalt and the hanging lanterns are just turning on. He tells Hajime, “ _how full of possibility this place is, like the shops are changing every night and you’ll find something new at every corner_ ,” and the latter just thinks it’s the coffee talking. But for every time Oikawa peers into a storefront display, or greets an elderly woman selling sponge cakes, or dashes into secondhand stores with nothing in mind to buy, Hajime thinks he might understand where he’s coming from. He has to, when Oikawa Tooru was never meant to stand still in the first place. Let the cobblestone be places of tectonic shift, and every shop, a cramped, yet limitless universe. May he find them all to his liking.

“And your favorite, Iwa-chan?” asks Oikawa that same night, when they’re sitting on the apartment rooftop, plugging Oikawa’s _vintage_ record player into the only outlet in the area. Hajime lifts the glass cover off the spinning wheel and looks out past the fence, at the mess of telephone wires and fish-scale rooftops, a mix of the flat-top commercial and the trees that need a desperate trimming. Under the yellow light of streetlamps, the smell of spice and steam in the air, Hajime thinks this place might be just fine for a favorite. He has always been told that the sky hangs lowest in the city, that you can touch the clouds with the peak of your fingernail if you really try, and Hajime has never been one to deny a place so easy on the eyes. 

“Here?” Oikawa guesses with ease, slipping the vinyl out of the sleeve and pressing his eye to the center. When he lowers the record from his face, he’s wearing something sly by the curl of his lips. 

“Oh, shut up,” says Hajime, taking the record from Oikawa’s grasp and laying it down on the turntable. He lets the needle lower onto the spinning disc, hears it start in the middle of a song (because who’s _actually_ good at getting it on the starting line, he’ll never know). It’s classical in low volumes, a piece Hajime’s heard before _,_ even if he doesn’t remember the name, and Oikawa reminds him by scooting close to him and tugging on the bracelet on his wrist. 

With a whisper, Oikawa murmurs, “ _riverbank,”_ and tells him it’s Frederic Chopin's _Fantaisie-Impromptu in C-Sharp Minor, Op. posth. 66._ Admittedly, Hajime would not remember the name until later, but Oikawa never takes offense to this. He just lies his head on Hajime’s shoulder, takes in a deep and shaky breath, and tells Hajime just the following:

“Welcome to the city, Hajime.”

_—where you’ll always be my favorite._

**_  
x_ **

 

  
_Dear obaachan and ojiichan,_

_Last night, I bought a record player today and listened to it on the roof of my apartment in Kichijoji. Iwa-chan was with me, and we looked up at the night sky and scanned for stars like it’d never turn back to day. We never did get our stars on account of all the light pollution, but before I knew it, we were watching the sunrise like we were still back at home. Then we went for a jog, tried to unpack a little more, and ended up napping on the floor. I guess that’s what happens when you don’t sleep a wink, and you’ve been running on nothing but the promise of everything ahead of you._

_(But I guess that’s just how things go. Life is nice like that, isn’t it?)_

_-Tooru_

 

**_x_ **

 

When Oikawa introduces himself to the rest of the Hosei University volleyball club, he doesn’t think to lie like their first day at Kitagawa Daiichi.

“My name is Oikawa Tooru, first year,” he announces to the echo of the biggest gym they’ve both ever practiced in. “I’m a setter with three lives and I’d like to go to the olympics,” he continues with his nose slightly upturned, like he means to conquer it anyway.

The captain, a bulky third year that looks thirty-five to Hajime, steps out of line from all of the upperclassmen and comes forward to inspect Oikawa, nose-to-nose, in only the highest skepticism. He glances back at their other team members, then at the coach, before promptly shaking his head, as if to reject him, raising his jersey, his ill-fitting _number one_ , to wipe off the excess sweat.

“We don’t appreciate liars on this team,” he tells Oikawa bluntly. “The coaches told us you had four lives, not three." 

Offering a smile, only light in condescension this time, Oikawa just says, “we all have accidents, don’t we?” The way he says this is the perfect amount of petulance, as if to say, _I’m not scared of you,_ but _let’s all get along,_ too. Hajime suddenly imagines Oikawa during face wash commercials, picture perfect, a sponsor’s sure dream because of how precise his efforts at flirting can be, but he shakes the thought off when he knows he’s thinking much too far ahead.

“What? Does that mean you’re _reckless_ sort, then?” the captain (who Oikawa would later pen as _Santa-chan_ for the curious bristles of white hair on his chin) scoffs back. At this, Oikawa still doesn’t shrink. He just crouches down, picks up one of the volleyballs from the ground, and presents it back to _Santa-chan_ with a nod of his head.

“Not when it comes to setting,” says Oikawa, unfazed. “Say, captain, what kind of tosses do you like? You’re a middle blocker, right? From the videos I’ve watched, it seems you like to use the center court a lot, and I think I have the perfect thing for you…” he goes on like this, and after a while, Hajime just tunes out Oikawa altogether: and it isn’t because he’s annoyed— _hell,_ he knows everything his setter might say by now—and musters it up to some sort of faith. He knows Oikawa will get through to them. Hajime focuses, instead, on the way tense shoulders sink into something relaxed, how grimaces turn into something curious.

‘ _Who is this awful kid with three lives?’_ they probably all want to ask, ‘ _and why do I want him to toss for me?’_

And before Hajime can even get a spike in for himself on the other side, he watches Oikawa dazzle his part of the court, feet leaping up to make the perfect backwards arch. When _Santa-chan_ hits his toss, there are stars in his eyes like Oikawa’s always known where to find them, mouth agape because Hajime knows he can’t believe it. On the last attack of the practice match, Hajime holds his breath when he knows Oikawa is trying for _the perfect toss,_ more perfect than the last, and almost loses it when his fingers line up with with the cushion of the ball. _Save it for when it matters,_ Hajime almost wants to tell him, feet screeching under him, but he knows, deep down, _rising up_ , that this matters plenty.

And when Oikawa’s team wins 25-22 that afternoon, in the only set of the day, Hajime is only vaguely annoyed by the loss. He makes a promise to win next time, or better yet, to win with Oikawa at his side.

“Iwa-chan,” says Oikawa, ducking under the net to meet Hajime. “Did you tell that second-year setter over there how you like your tosses?”

Hajime shakes his head. “I didn’t, no.”

With a grin, Oikawa peers at the rest of the team, their shoulders big, their smiles brimming. He is no less jubilant about their day on the court.

“Don’t you hate how you build yourself up to senior status, only to end up right at the bottom again?” he asks next, not quite bitter. “ _All that work_ , just to show up like a stranger.”

Hajime scoffs. “Like we’ve ever let that get in the way. They’ll know us, sooner or later.”

“Ace spiker and ace server,” Oikawa says like they’ve already got a cheering squad in the Hosei stands. Hajime basks in the possibility of it.

“Hosei’s finest.”

“What a plain nickname. Be more creative, Iwa-chan.” 

“How about I find a new way to punch you instead? How's that for creative?" 

“...I’d rather go without that.” 

That evening, the other upperclassmen welcome Oikawa and Iwaizumi to the team with track jackets, training schedules, and an offer to go drinking sometime. And although they’re not on the first string yet, Oikawa eyes his new jersey (a thirteen to Hajime’s fourteen) with little apprehension, as if greatness will be assured.

 

**_x_ **

 

"Iwa-chan, I’m just going to warn you now.”

“Of what?”

“As soon as we get to our stop, I’m going to leave you in the dust.”

"Huh?"

When they get off the train later that night, Oikawa dashes off the station platform within moments, right down the stairs into the rain, through Harmonica Alley and across the south end of Inokashira park, to which Hajime follows right after, laughing, calling without caring who hears. _Tooru, Tooru,_ _Tooru,_ he says to the high-flier, the two most crucial syllables in any language, _Tooru,_ for the every game ahead, every championship on the line. _Tooru,_ his setter, his family, a name he’s still getting used to calling, even in the most private of moments, and one that he might want to use more often from now on. _Tooru,_ because he’s honestly not sure how much time he has left to say it, or how many times the name will leave his mouth with a smile.

 _Tooru,_ because there might never be anyone else like him.

Oikawa meanders off the path, slowing in steps but never relenting, peeling off his wet shoes and the skin of soggy ankle socks at the torii gate. Hajime does the same, and they wander on quietly, hands interlacing under the same sort of storm they had grown up under. _Tooru,_ Hajime calls from behind him, face heated from running, and the other boy just lets a grin cling to the raised cotton of his shirt.

 _Tooru,_ because there will never be anyone else like him.

"Iwa-chan." As Oikawa pulls him under the roof of the Benzaiten temple, rain jagged with downpour, Hajime thinks of all the other hundreds and thousands of Tooru’s in this world—of all the governors and artists and great composers, the actors and race car drivers, the sumo wrestlers and software developers, he knows they will never compare to the _Tooru_ that he knows. Because if he had to put it into words, or write anything into law, he’d need whole archives to explain the fallacy and chances of meeting, of _falling in love_ with someone like Oikawa Tooru. For Tooru, _his Tooru_ , moves faster than any speeding race car, rules his court grander than a governor, feigns better than any actor behind the camera. Because if Hajime had the chance to correct any cosmic anomaly of his choosing—never making it to nationals, the weird way his pinky aches when it rains, the way apples itch his throat—he would never dare to touch the constant flux within Oikawa Tooru. He wouldn’t dream of breaching such a precious ecosystem.

“Iwa-chan?”

And when he thinks about how little he believes in the concept of _soulmates_ , how people can generally get on because they find a few things to cling onto (and how he could do the same, if he wanted to) he wonders how he’s never gotten lost in the universe that Tooru’s spun for himself, over and over again. He wonders why he’s never quit, despite the changing phases, the many moons, the people Tooru tries to be. All Hajime knows, by this point, past all the moving boxes, the approximately three-hundred and forty-three kilometers of distance between Miyagi and Kichijoji, their fights, their wins, and their losses, is that this isn’t just a matter of something fleeting. Hajime has long reached the event horizon. He lets Oikawa Tooru be his world.

Back to earth, under the awning of a fish scale roof, rain dripping down the sides of Benzaiten’s temple, Hajime climbs up the stone steps, right on his knees, and comes closer to Oikawa. He tells himself to calm down, that his adrenaline’s rushing from running all this way and getting to play again today, but there’s no use by now. He knows there isn’t. He just gives up at the sight of Tooru, his hair a damp mess, shirt soaked through, dazed like none other, and presses him up against the corner column, cautiously, to kiss him. They stay like this when Oikawa kisses back, eyes closed, storm neverending around them, and let the sound of rain carry them somewhere else. For a moment, the trickle of it sounds like what stars might, if they could come close enough to hearing them.

When they separate, Oikawa laughs to keep the good tidings. There's something about kissing like this, intermittent and in pieces, light in touch like the early summer, that reminds Hajime of their first under the hanging birdhouse, and the memory only makes him wince. The sting feels just as worse. Oikawa has no idea of the gravity clumping in Hajime’s throat, like an urge to cry and tell the world about everything he's seen, but Hajime thinks he might be better off without knowing. Deep down, he has the feeling that Oikawa might know it already. It is a bottomless well and the other side of a gaping black hole.

Smile faltering just by a twitch’s worth, Oikawa lifts himself to place a kiss on his best friend’s forehead.

With a deep breath and another press, Hajime just wonders how they can still find this silence, all heavy with promise, after two years of being together.

(And with the rain's christening comes the rest of their summer, their first in the city away from home.)

 

**.09**

**“love” is what it is,**

**even if you don’t say it.**

**it’s all ache, ache, ache.**

 

_Dear obaachan and ojiichan,_

_Have you been getting my letters? I’m just wondering, because it’s kind of hard sending them to my house back in Miyagi and expecting okaachan to walk to the park to deliver them. As you may know, she doesn’t like leaving the house too often and it’s kind of a big trip to her. (“Ah, Tooru, but what if I get hit by a truck on the way here?” Good old family thinking. I tell her that the fresh air is certainly worth it.)_

_Well, I’m just writing to you two because there’s nothing much to do except eat and practice and explore, and by the time midnight rolls around, Iwa-chan and I have done all three and I’m still antsy to keep my hands moving. So I must apologize if my letters get sort of rambly, although I imagine you’re used to that already._  

_So, speaking of stories that get off track, there’s one I’d really like to tell you before I can’t put it into words. It’s regarding Iwa-chan._

_We were running all about a couple of days ago, when the rain was really bad, and we ended up taking shelter under the roof of Benzaiten temple. Now, you must understand that I’ve done this many times before, hide with Iwa-chan from storms, but there was something about this particular time that was different. The moment he reached me, it started off like the countless times he’s done before, but in one instance, it felt like...diving into a place I could not manage. It was ~~scary~~ ~~spectacular~~ something._

_Definitely something. We let the rain hit us without a care._  

_Ah. I forgot what I wanted to write next. It seems I’m losing my words again, as I did back there too. At the temple, all I did was smile, accept the depth of certain things, and continue on. The world is strange like that, isn’t it? I wonder if Hajime felt the same thing, sitting next to me, too._

_Either way, this only strengthens my resolve._  

 _I have to keep going._  

_-Tooru_

 

**_x_ **

 

Every Monday, when his senses are in stupor and the day demands too much, Hajime is thankful for slow mornings and just the smallest glint of sun. It is what he’s been getting on his bare back against his futon at approximately 6:35AM, alluring enough to ruse him out of sleep without the aid of an alarm, but gentle enough to forget it’s a glare. He sits up in bed and whips off the covers, careful so Oikawa keep sleeping, and makes out the small band-aid on his face. With a scoff, Hajime wonders how _extreme_ Oikawa must have been in reading last night, to get something as misplaced as a _paper cut_ on that pretty little face of his. _How foreboding._ When Hajime just resigns to run a thumb against the jokey alien design, Oikawa frowns, stirs in his sleep, and sighs without waking up to the touch. Hajime does the same when he thinks he’d like to stay in bed longer.

With autumn’s draft spying in on summer, he pulls on a worn sweater and gets ready for the day. He has natto and a fried egg on top of rice for breakfast, barley tea on the side. A review of Kawai Sora’s _Sora Tabi Nikki_ , for a literature seminar Oikawa _insisted_ would be fun to take, takes up the next fifteen minutes of his time. (“ _Don’t get me wrong, Iwa-chan, but I think you secretly love poetry, and I think you need to exercise that_.”) With a quick shower and another piece of toast for the road, Hajime sets off in sandals and the lightly-packed knapsack, Oikawa groaning for him to get back into bed in the doorway, and the following answer of, _‘no, because some of us actually have Monday classes.’_ At this, Oikawa yawns out a groan, leans against the wall, and wishes him a safe trip like usual. _Come back soon._ The exchange takes a total of two minutes, meaning a rushed trip to the station for his 7:51 train on the JR Chuo line. Hajime is not as annoyed as he thinks he’d be.

On the train, Hajime does not get a seat. When the train crosses over the rooftops of Asagaya, he makes out the top of an old house by the tracks, charred beyond recognition. Black smoke rises thinly from the end of smolder, and Hajime feels the need to look away from the remains. After glancing around at the red ribbon of a girl’s hair, an advertisement for electric blue ramune, and the sweat of a half-finished ice coffee, his eyes rest on a man’s newspaper, in which today’s headline reads, **_“THE WITCHING HOUR: ON NAVIGATING THE NIGHT.”_**

On the rest of his journey, he counts three more burnt houses, each of them in different states of ruin. By the fourth roof, still burning, Hajime pretends he is not afraid.

At school, Hajime hears news of _godly arson_ when someone points up to towering apartment complexes. Hajime follows the point of an acquaintance's finger, where he meets a flurry of ash and soot, a blackened space where a fifth floor apartment unit used to nestle. Said acquaintance, an Osaka native researching ancient folklore from the west, tells him that demons have come to bewitch Tokyo. _They lure you out from your houses and kill you by shadows,_ she says. With one more glance up at the rubble, Hajime tries to think of the indestructible bird house, how that could be an arc for everything he’s trying to protect, and seeks no further comfort.

_“Officials have declared a state of emergency for all major metropolitan areas worldwide. Please refrain from using stoves, candles, and any electronic appliances from the hours of nine p.m. and two a.m., as six cities have reported spontaneous combustion within property units. The government, in order to combat rising deaths by godly arson, have begun investigating possible voluntary blackouts. Please stay tuned for more developments.”_

When Hajime comes home from class that evening half an hour earlier than usual, Oikawa is sitting on the floor, headphones connected to his record player next to him. A glimpse of the band aid still rests on his cheek. He is humming something soft—a chart topper this time—while he wraps a fresh guard around a bruised knee. Without having Oikawa notice, Hajime goes over to the freezer and wraps an ice pack in a washcloth, plopping back down right next to him and making him flinch from the surprise. The guard slinks right back down his calf before he has a chance to settle it on his knee, to which Hajime just presses the ice first.

“Is it acting up again?” Hajime asks, forgetting anything about _bewitching_. 

“Well, it’s nice to see you too, Iwa-chan _.”_ Oikawa scowls a bit, resting his headphones around his neck. “And just a little bit,” he says, sticking a little bit of his tongue out.

“That’s what happens when you run six miles instead of the usual three,” Hajime scolds further, helping him slip the guard back up his leg. “I know we’ve got our sights on first string, but you won’t make it if you break your leg before that.”

“I didn’t think I’d keep running like that,” Oikawa says as he frowns deeper. “I just really hate Mondays, I guess. You’d think, oh, _no practice, no classes,_ how great! Free time! But it’s the absolute worst. There’s nothing to do, Iwa-chan. I mean, do you know how many jump serves I practiced today? Three-hundred and twenty nine. That’s my personal best!”

Hajime sighs. “Then it's no wonder your knee’s all messed up again.”

Silence reigns after that, deep and gulping. In glimpses, Hajime thinks about _the witching hour,_ all the maladies that have come to the world before it, before settling on the omnipresence of number _three_.

“Well, it’d feel a lot better with a nice trip to the void, you know, because everytime I go there, I come back feeling _sooo_ refreshed,” Oikawa says a little too coolly after a while, looking at the muted screen of the television in the corner with a half-lidded gaze. Hajime can see the flashes of color in the glaze of his stare. “And you know, with what’s going on in the city and all, I could make it there without a worry.”

“Don’t joke like that,” Hajime tells him, biting his tongue back to stop from barking at him outright. “Don’t you dare.”

With a smile, completely insincere, Oikawa huddles a guarded knee closer to his chest and blinks back at Hajime.

“But it’s true, isn’t it?”

“ _Oikawa_.”

“ _Twokawa_ is more like it—”

“Tooru!” Hajime shouts this time, letting the name leave his mouth in ways he never wants to.

At the call, Oikawa sighs, faces away from him, and hums out a series of random notes. His hands shake from the way he holds his knee together.

“If we just follow all the instructions, turn everything off, it should all be fine,” Hajime edges out further, trying to believe it himself. “I’m not going to let them take another life from you.”

“But that’s the thing, Iwa-chan.” Held hands unlink and Oikawa lowers his bandaged knee, removing the numbing comfort of ice. He gets up carefully on his free leg, walks over to the television to shut it off without doing so, and stays standing over it, gathering silence in favor of finding the right words. “That’s not what we came here for, isn’t it? Because I’m sure you don’t want to sit in an apartment all day, or live by the next _disaster-to-be_. I want to be out there. I want make convenience store runs because I feel like it, or go to _nabe_ parties when the weather gets cold. I don’t want to leave practice early because I think I might get caught up in something terrible, or skip out on showing Mattsun and Makki the nightlife when they visit.”

“I know,” Hajime says, still hating the word. _I know._ He stays where he is and sucks in a deep and wavering breath.

Vaguely, he remembers the same glow of the television, his spot on the floor, and the pleads of someone just wanting _to go outside._ There were blankets then, rain like they had never seen before, the blaring of an alien documentary they were never going to watch. Hajime had cried that day, bursting over someone he didn’t know he’d keep for the next twelve years of his life.

The thing is, Hajime doesn’t cry this time. He thinks he might be strong enough not to, even if _nine_ kawa has turned to _three_. Getting up from the floor, he just joins Oikawa next to the television, bes the one to shut it off this time, and stands with him in solidarity. And even though neither of them are bawling this time, or hiding under the comfort of blanket forts, Oikawa still takes his hand anyway, squeezes it before loosening, and lowers his head onto Hajime’s shoulder.

"You have a lot ahead of you, Tooru. Don’t waste it." 

"But don't make me stay inside, either," Oikawa tells Hajime in a small voice, grave. It sounds like he's never been so sure of anything in his life. 

At once, Hajime sees oneesan watching the wisteria from an open door, and a mother, receiving pansies from the threshold of a never-left house. At the forefront, _always at the forefront,_ Oikawa reaches up to touch an embattled sky. The memory of lightning makes Hajime quake like nothing else.

"I won't—" Hajime tells him nonetheless, like the thunder that follows. The sound of it is far away, small to match the fleeting flash of light, because both of them aren't sure how to conjure up the right storm this time. 

"—I promise I won't."

 

**.10**

**from the nest, i watched**

**him fly to breaking branches.**

**"don't fall," i begged, prayed.**

 

_you were a good thing once_

One day after Hosei University loses their first string setter to _the witching hour,_ Hajime watches Oikawa ascend from the bench, breathe in the court with forming anxiety, and ease in with little trouble anyway. With wide eyes, a shaking of his own, Hajime keeps on his toes the entire time Oikawa sends tosses, only relaxing when he sees the perfect way palms meet the ball. Over and over this happens, and Hajime, partially hidden by the rows of reserve players waiting to play, still yells the loudest out of all of them during rallies. He thinks of Oikawa as an embassy, from the way his tosses welcome every foreign hand, the awed tourists that jump up to find him.

 _"You know, I had heard great things about Oikawa-san, but I never thought he'd be this good,"_ a second year middle blocker says as Hajime watches the arc of the ball fly across the court. It reminds him of the same toss he had gotten against Karasuno, and he imagines that he is the one to hit it when another wing spiker jumps up to slam it down.

 _"He's going to do great things, if he keeps up the hard work,"_ the coach says back to him. _“National team potential.”_ At the promise in his voice, Hajime feels his cheeks burn from something both proud and antsy. _Of course_ Oikawa's good, but Hajime knows he is meant to play too, even if it will take a little longer for everyone else to notice him. _I will get there, too,_ he thinks, by the will of practice and all hard work.

_you were a good thing once_

Hajime resists the urge to peer out dark windows and swallows down his plagues. Doubt is not allowed. Old demons will not be spoken to.

 _you were a good thing once_  

By the time the game ends and Hajime has not been picked to play, the team has won their practice match against Keio University by two straight sets, 25-19 and 25-20. Hajime lets himself stay on the outskirts of a team huddle, seeing only glimpses of Oikawa inside it. With a hint of a smile, more of a pleasantry than anything for the people he does not know, Oikawa finds Hajime in the mess of forearms and faces, and lets his grin spread into something genuine. Hajime tries his best to meet him too, view still obscured, and pretends to savor the same kind of victory.

 

And later that night, when Oikawa is trying beer for the first time, a gift to himself for getting to play in his first college match, Hajime finds something bittersweet in his sake. He watches a tipsy Oikawa laugh with the waitress and the two other first years sitting across from them, sharing jokes about _Ushiwaka,_ a specter of a common foe, and take bets on who will make the national team to see him first. And whether it is the alcohol, or the excuse of having it, he just stares up from his cup, scans the table with unmitigated focus, and shakes his head over the okonomiyaki. He feels something woozy overtake him, vision kaleidoscopic.

“I’ll have you know that it’ll be me,” he says, red in the face. “And I’ll knock that Ushiwaka bastard’s ass down!”

Hajime looks to Oikawa and expects him to laugh. Gloating, humming, _“Ha! I beat you, Iwa-chan.”_ Back in Miyagi, Hanamaki and Matsukawa had placed bets on who would find their _drunken spell_ first, calling off their wagers altogether when they realized that Oikawa was too strong a contender to foster any sort of competition. But here Oikawa was, beating the odds, arm wrapped around Hajime’s to prop him up all the way home. He mutters things Hajime almost can’t hear, catching utterances of _“you’ll be okay”_ and _“we’ll make it together.”_ In a haze, Hajime wonders if drunkenness lets those unaffected speak freely as well, like some sort of spell, but he lets the sentiment flitter away into mid autumn air.

“Together,” Oikawa says again.

Hajime laughs, even if it’s only to breathe a little easier. “And what happened to that whiny kid worrying about himself on that middle school court?”

It is here where Oikawa laughs. Looking down the same kind of platform where they had once shared temporary goodbyes, departed together for this place, he tightens a hold on Hajime when he thinks he might stumble too close to the edge. He reassures worried passersby when they ask if his friend’s had too much to drink, and answers Hajime’s question when he almost forgets he’s asked it.

“Oh don’t you know, Iwa-chan? He died a very long time ago.”

And on the train ride home, Oikawa glances out the window, vision trapped in _the witching hour_ blazes. With one hand on the handlebar and the other pressed to the glass, he draws tally marks over the light frost made in the window, leaning over a sitting Hajime to make his marks. _One, two, three,_ Hajime can barely count over his shoulder _._ The need to tell Oikawa to _shut up_ rises _,_ even though they haven't said anything to each other in the past ten minutes.

And in those following blips of time and space where Oikawa might not be looking at him, devil knocks at Hajime’s door, lets a ghastly draft slip through the cracks in the walls, and howls with his heart out.

**_you were a good thing once, but can you keep pace?_ **

 

**_x_ **

 

_Dear obaachan and ojiichan,_

_I got into a fight with Iwa-chan today. You can usually tell it's a bad one, when he's so angry that he can't even yell at me properly._ _I mean, I'm not even sure how it happened. Ah-no, maybe I do. Because we do bicker over stupid stuff sometimes, like taking too long in the shower, or leaving the kettle on the stove without hot water, or closing the window at night, but we never stay heated about things like that. I think our biggest fight in Tokyo was over volleyball._

_When we were in the middle of a practice match and Iwa-chan got called up to play, I tossed to him like usual. It was the first we've gotten to use in a match together in the city, and it did give me a bit of trouble because of positioning and whatnot. He hit the ball, but not with the full force I know he has, and the match went on. I thought nothing of it, because I've always passed to Iwa-chan. He wasn't happy with that._

_After the match, he told me not to do that. "Do what?" I asked him. He said I was passing to him even when other players were in much better position to spike. I was confused, because it's never been that way with us. Wouldn't he always want the ball, if I can get it to him?_

_He said he didn't want the ball without merit. I said he was on the court for a reason. He told me to pass it to someone else, if there were clearly better options, that I was not being the best setter I could be. "The team comes first."_

_That's the thing, though. I can't think of anyone else as a better option. Iwa-chan has always been my ace, and I'd like him to stay that way for a long, long time, even if we do bicker and fight over tea kettles and open windows. But he says that we're in a whole other level now, playing in university, and that he has to practice to get stronger. I think that was the last part of our fight. He ran out with his gym bag after that._

_Still, I don't care how mad he is at me. I'm going to follow him and hold his hand all the way there._

_(And then he's going to squeeze my hand back, because that's what he does and everything's okay. We're okay.)_

_-Tooru_

 

**_x_ **

 

One night, when he thinks Oikawa has fallen asleep first, Hajime whispers to him across the futon, bites his tongue, and wonders why it is so easy to _want_ at night. The crickets have died into nothing by now, making room for the low echo of autumn wind, making muted songs for a boy who just doesn’t want to be heard.

Still, Hajime says it again anyway, muffled into his pillow. _Hear me, but don’t._

“I don’t ever want to be apart from you.”

 

**_x_ **

 

Hajime does not wallow for long. He does not envy. When Oikawa is officially selected for the first string a mere two months since moving to Tokyo, Hajime just promises to practice harder than ever, laces up his shoes, and stays in the gym until maintenance closes the lights on him. He does this every other day, in between lectures and after practices, hands craving to spike more than he suspects. Oikawa complains when they miss out on ramen dates and their regularly scheduled TV programming, but Hajime knows he understands. He always does. Oikawa even follows, past arguments big and small, and the two forge on with the ball to connect them.

It is a Monday in mid November when the lamps flick off like usual. When they do, Hajime is mid-air and trying to connect with Oikawa’s toss, the umpteenth after a series of misfires, little victories, and all the _not-so-quite’s_ in between. He sees just a glimpse of the ball’s rotation, green and red and perfect like the past blur of Camellia Road, and barely tips it with his fingers before meeting the blackout. Hajime curses when he knows he has made nothing but a feint. _Fuck feints,_ he barks to himself in frustration. In echoes, Hajime hears the ball bounce on the other side, the way his own harried breath sounds when he lands, and resolves to keep himself from buckling completely.

 _Enough for today._ Hajime refuses to work himself to the brink. _Tomorrow._ On wobbly knees, he makes out Oikawa’s silhouette in the moonlight, hopes he can’t see him hunched over like this, and looks to the floor with sweat dripping like drizzle. It feels too early for the lights to go out like this, to heave sighs like he’s going to choke.

“Is it time already?” Hajime asks, still catching his breath. From his crouch, he watches Oikawa’s shadow turn towards the window, right where the wall clock hangs under it, and makes out the motion of a shaken head. 8:45. _Not even close._ In the silence of the gym, the two of them step back when they hear the sound of thunder, like a low crackle in the still night, a monster making its footprints, and keep reverence over the oncoming heaviness. When Hajime sees his breath form under the eerie glow, he thinks back to the sight of falling ash and blazing rooftops, tastes that familiar burn on his tongue, and wonders if the gods are amidst them tonight.

“Iwa-chan,” Oikawa calls out, voice barely a whisper like he's hiding. “Something doesn’t feel right.” At this, the setter paces up past the net, peers out the door’s window, and stays pressed to the frame before pulling back. Hajime follows, takes Oikawa’s hand along the way, fingers tugging on his bracelet, and keeps his sights on the spreading night. The street lights flicker until they blow out completely. The ever venerable Boissonade Tower, a stronghold in the horizon, loses all illumination.

The two of them don't bother to change and quickly gather their things. Hajime hears something rumble against the door, like the world might be ending outside, and that maybe calamity is coming for them next, too. He waves Oikawa off from leaving the gym just yet. On his nose, Hajime smells the thickening aroma of camellias, staccatos of charcoal notes mixed in, and stifles the urge to gag at it. _Burning._ More thunder, a rumbling underneath their feet. _Earthquakes again?_ _No, that can’t be. Blackout?_ Oikawa, hand gripped hard on Hajime’s jacket sleeve, is so close behind that he can feel him breathe wisps down his neck.

 

 

**.11**

**i once met my love**

**at a bridge about to sink.**

**we kept on and swam.**

 

 

The next hour is characterized by four things: an old book with Tooru’s name on it, phone calls from both their mothers, aplastered **“ _THE WITCHING HOUR IS UPON US”_** by angry gods on Tokyo’s biggest LED screens, and a speeding train to nowhere.

This does not begin with such clamor. When Oikawa and Hajime first leave the gym together, the moon has absconded behind the clouds, covering its eyes to the unfolding mayhem. Darkness blankets the city, stretching over every tower and flat-top apartment complex and chimney, draining them of the light and all things home. Sparks fly from telephone poles, snapping wires, waking the sleeping birds from from their temporary roosts. _‘Get away,’_ they tweet this time to the people below. _‘Because the city is not yours.’_ To Hajime they say, _‘it never was.’_

_‘You’re going to die here, if you don’t get out.’_

Pushing through the crowds clamoring out on the streets, Hajime tears his eyes to the front and makes out pieces of conversation, right on the verge of turning into panic but not quite so. A girl laughs nervously, asking another if the ghosts have come out to play. 

Oikawa finds Hajime’s hand again when a two-level secondhand bookstore bursts overhead, sending loose paper and old tomes flying over them, their floating shadows suspended like reaper’s hawks. When the smell of burnt ash instantly pervades the air, Hajime quickly goes into his duffle bag for a scarf, tosses it at Oikawa, tells him to put it on so he doesn’t choke from the smell. _Keep going._ Oikawa, barely listening anyway, takes the red cloth into his hands, finds the focus to pick up a book from under a salaryman’s foot, and brushes the soot off the cover while running along. He drops his gym bag along the way and barely offers it a second glance.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Hajime asks, practically spitting. He grabs onto Oikawa’s hand and leads him down one of the emptier alleys, wishing he had taken the time to know the train routes better here in Tokyo. He thinks about the nearest station, wonders if the trains would even run at a time like this, and gets a head start before all the other students still watching their city burst up in flames. He takes Oikawa with him, book and all.

“Iwa-chan...this book has my name on it!” Oikawa yells out, when they’re clamoring down the street. “I couldn’t just leave it—”

“Later!” Hajime snatches the book from Oikawa’s hand, throws it haphazardly in his duffle bag, and keeps down the street. Sparks continue to fly overhead and boutiques explode into fire. Cell phones ring and go unanswered and rattle on anyway, because mothers are bound to keep calling if their sons do not answer. _Please get out of Tokyo,_ Hajime hears his mother say anyway. _Run, Hajime._ On the street, people stop pointing and start pacing. Trains howl and howl from their stations underground and the adjoining vents, shouting like saints caught in cataclysm. _Last call. Last call. Last call._ Through every inch made up the street, the people filling it like ants leaving abandoned nests, Hajime does not stop holding Oikawa’s hand. Hands clasp harder, tight to the point where they ache and ache and _ache_. Officers ask them to turn around at the entrance of each station. In churning knots, dread fills his stomach until it’s almost too hard for Hajime to move, to breathe.

“Don’t let go from me!” Hajime’s voice is a half-plead, shaking, when he tells Oikawa. “Promise you won’t!” 

Oikawa doesn’t say anything in answer. _Tooru, please,_ Hajime almost breathes out.In breathlessness, never stopping, never relenting, Hajime looks back, sees a face partially hidden underneath a scarf habitually shared, eyes wide and glassy under the spark and streaming LEDs. Neon pink into cool blue into vermillion, _that crimson._ Blinking, Hajime remembers an unspoken promise under the rain, past the blushing torii gates, the six-mouthed mailbox, the thunderbird red of an upturned bicycle. _Tick tick tick._ Camellia red, light’s watercolor, reflects in someone not ready to perish today. _Tooru_. **“ _THE WITCHING HOUR IS UPON US”_** the signs read next, whirring into static before blipping off. A sizzle, sharp, rises into the air, and a popular department store detonates by the will of a god’s flicked finger.

They are angry, they are vengeful, they are petty. They will take and take and take.

**_“GOODBYE”_ **

“I won’t, Hajime,” Oikawa says to him when they leave the square, the swarms, almost crushed along the way. “I won’t let go,” he can barely edge out. _I won’t say goodbye._ Hajime hears him anyway, mostly by the way Oikawa clasps onto the braid of his leather band. He yanks so hard he might be cutting circulation off from Hajime’s wrist. For once, _just this once_ , Hajime does not mind the feeling of it. It just reminds him that Oikawa is there. They will run together. He just doesn’t realize how many people are running with them.

After what feels like forever, Hajime and Oikawa reach Shinjuku station, joining the other hundreds of people trying to get on the last running trains. _We just need to get to Saitama,_ Hajime thinks, where the witching hour won’t reach. He pushes through with everything he has, spotting police officers and attendants down at the front of the line. They say that only two more trains will run before they shut off service. With all the force he can muster, because _they will not be stuck here,_ Hajime reaches on, shouts, “ _please let him on first! He has three lives!_ ” At the call, he raises Oikawa’s arm with his to draw their attention. 

In the commotion, two police officers are mistaken and pull for Hajime instead, forcing him further away from Oikawa. The grasp between them loosens, and Hajime screams.

_“Tooru, hold onto me!”_

To the authorities, he pleads, “let me go back!” The officers don’t listen. The last thing Hajime feels from Oikawa before losing him is the fading grasp of braided string.

“Hajime, I’m here _,_ ” is the last thing he hears from Tooru, face lifting from that crimson scarf of his, words written all over a muted mouth. It is a curse, how much Tooru belongs in that color. 

In the span of the next second, another boom sounds overhead, louder than all the other instances, and the people break through like a hurricane waiting on the edges. The officers pull Hajime aside at the last possible moment when a stampede breaks through the station, each rumble louder than the previous. World on fire, _his_ in the crowd, Hajime does not tear his gaze away as he watches that last glimpse of red, Oikawa’s scarf, fly up by the fringes before falling below. Like the others unable to hold their footing, Oikawa disappears under the sea of them, caught in the torrents. 

Against the grip of an officer holding him back, limbs still weak from running and practicing and running some more _,_ from keeping it the _hell_ together, Hajime tries to bite him in the arm to get himself loose. _Let me get him,_ he shouts, snarling, _let me fucking get him!_

Sense leaves him in droves and all falls mute before him. _He’s okay. He has to be._ When Hajime tries to explain himself, that insistence to retrieve Oikawa too, to get him from that crowd because _please, he only has three lives left, please, he needs me, I need him,_ pointing past the police officers pulling him away to the platform, fighting them every inch of the way, they say it is too late. _It can’t be._ Hajime doesn’t believe them, and _never will_ until he gets to see Tooru with his own eyes. Like days of old, he remembers the flashes of great cataclysm, their hands separating in the water, the train whipping like a demon’s tail. The bicycle flips over and Oikawa ruins his hands against jagged metal. Birds fly off to find new sanctuaries. _He’s okay. He has to be._  

_I’m going to find you, Tooru. I’m going to find you._

Back in Miyagi, the high hanging birdhouse cracks for the first time in history, a fissure down the back. Two mothers, three houses apart, continue to call for their sons, dialtones neverending. Trouble follows trouble, down to the trains of Shibuya.

  _Tooru._

_Am I still a good thing to you?_

When he lets himself see, Hajime meets nothing but Tooru's limp arm, palm outstretched amidst a tangle of legs and rushing feet, bracelet still tied around a trampled wrist.

Hajime is too scared to let himself see the rest of him.

Instead, he lets himself yell his throat raw and lose all strength.

When the police clear the way for him, prop him from his dragging feet, and shout, _“clear the way, clear the way, this boy only has three lives,”_ Hajime thinks about every cruel joke the gods have played on him. He had seen two deaths in a day, a smile dressed in blood, the way Tooru had died right on his shoulder once in the Kitagawa Daiichi gym. He had been there. For every one of Oikawa Tooru’s deaths, Hajime had practiced courage, _felt it_ even, and promised to face the next day, but he knows that some days are harder than others. Some go from bad to worse to  _I hope I never have to feel this way again._

But Hajime knows it will not get any easier from here. He knows he'll feel this way again. Twice, a thousand times, _a billion for good measure._

_"Clear the way, clear the way, we wouldn't want three turning into two now, wouldn't we?"_

Forced on the train to Saitama, tracks kicking up sparks, wheels on their last legs, Hajime does not let himself peer at the burning rooftops outside. He goes into his duffle bag instead, thinks to call his mother, and finds Oikawa’s book lying right on top. On the cover, without an author, the title reads  _Tooru’s Infinite Summer._  

Hajime almost wants to laugh, presses the damned thing to his face in a plead for better things, and throws it back in his bag without a second look.

 

 

 

**.12**

**when the sun caves in**

**and gardens wilt for winter,**

**i will protect us**.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! Sorry it's been so long since I updated, these chapters are really long and I graduated since the last chapter so things have been hectic moving and trying to find a job...but I'm here! And iwaoi are in Kichijoji :^) 
> 
> "The witching hour" was supposed to be my own version of other great cataclysms in Biblical stories (like the great flood or the the ten plagues of Egypt) except I wanted to put a modern, focused twist to it? Also, researching all about Kichijoji for this chapter certainly made me want to go there q_q
> 
> Anyway, I wanted to explore the themes of pressure, expectation, and family. Because college volleyball is an entirely different ballgame (heck some students are already on the national team, which is cool) I imagine that it'll be more difficult for them to always stay together there, since so many other people are competing for space too.
> 
> Well, that's all I have to say for now! I'm on companions.tumblr.com and @iwakages on twitter (I completely remade)


	7. hands held

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a lightish chapter this time around, since the last was so heavy it caused me to take a four month break from this fic HAHA (just kidding, but not really).   
>  recommended listening this time: "Lights Changing Colour" by Stars

 

Whenever the wind kicks up or the sun gleams an extra gold, Hajime leans out against the currents of whatever he's doing, wonders if this will be the day Oikawa comes back, and retreats when he knows it isn't.

" _Oikawa!_ "

On this particular morning, Iwaizumi leaves his dreaming when he jolts up in his bed in Miyagi. There is a bird humming a taunting song outside, and the sunrise looks like a shade of dandelion. He catches a bit of it in his eye, just the smallest sliver that could've really landed anywhere else if it didn't have the goddamned nerve, and he wonders, all hazy, if this is Oikawa's way of teasing from where he is.

At this, Hajime mutters a curse into his pillow, peeks out the half-opened window, and treats the gauzy curtains like ghosts of veils past. He stifles a sigh, looks at the date on the calendar, and shivers against the forming morning chill. Hajime thinks he'll bear it just fine, though. Maybe it'll take his mind off the fact that it's been two and a half weeks since he's seen Oikawa Tooru. 

Head all light, still caught up in a dream, Hajime sees red once more. Oikawa's scarf flies up by the fringes. The camellias bloom and wilt and bloom again, because that is what all living things do. Because being warm-blooded means kicking yourself awake and never finding the will to settle.

"Fuck." Hajime wipes the sweat off his neck before he can catch a proper cold. Eyes wired open, pried against any semblance of sleep, Hajime reaches over for his phone on the windowsill and refreshes his email until a new one blinks into his inbox, automated from Hosei University's administrative offices. Expecting the usual message about class and practice cancellations— _please stay tuned for further developments,_ typed in no-nonsense font and bolded for emphasis _—_ he nearly lets his phone slip out of his hand when he makes out something new.

 _All classes to resume in three days' time._  

_More news about sports practice, upcoming._

When Hajime reaches the last character in the message, he feels the breeze rise up once more, impatient for the day to start. Taking a deep breath, he collects his bearings, hops out from under the covers, watches how Hanamaki and Matsukawa can sleep through goddamned _anything_ , even on the floor, and steps over them to get to the bathroom. With a wash of his face, teeth all brushed with only half of his usual care, he finds his shoes in the doorway, ties them on tight, and leaves with a jacket in his arms. _All university activity to resume in three days' time._ Back to Kichijoji _._ Oikawa has to come back with him, two lives or not. 

"Come on," Hajime wills himself on, past restlessness, his weary constitution.

When Hajime runs past all the familiar, the storefronts he's known since he was a kid, the specific way the gravel mashes under his feet, the sound of trains both coming and going in the distance, Hajime thinks about the meaning of home. Miyagi is home, and will always be _,_ but he had left it with a promise to come back with something better. They were supposed to be _hometown heroes_ , Hajime thinks, Olympic champions with medals around their necks, with stories to tell about new cities and the roar of the highest court. What he didn't expect was to come back on the night of Japan's worst _witching hour_ to date, his mother's arms wrapped over him instead like a goddamned consolation prize. _You tried._  

(And _hell,_ did he try.)

But Hajime likes to think he didn't cry then. He remembers wilting over the doorstep, mother catching him in time instead. He remembers the resulting silence, the hollow pang of pats on the back, and how his mother didn't even need to ask. ( _'Did Tooru-kun come back with you, too?' 'No.' 'I'm so sorry, Hajime.')_ Oh, how much he had rehearsed the conversation anyway, and how he had said nothing else over a late dinner, barely eaten. He remembers going to bed that night, head caught in a single knot, nerves all pinched at the back of his neck, other words running off his tongue, mementos and memories squashed in between.

 _What kind of friend am I?_ Oikawa hands him a handwritten list at summer training camp. _What kind of friend am I?_ Oikawa lies on the floor of their shared apartment, hands all gentle, _always_ gentle when he pads the beginning of Hajime's goosebumps. _What kind of friend am I?_ They look at each other between train car cracks and ride a bike to the top.

Back on the running trail, he thinks much of the same. The question persists like summer gnats, but Hajime doesn't swat them away. 

 _What kind of friend am I?_ Hajime thinks about the meaning of falling behind, how people dig bigger pits trying to dig themselves out. Dents turn into war trenches. Oikawa's got two lives and a world that'd like to eat him alive, and Hajime's got the lives to give but hill after hill to climb.

But fuck it. 

 _Fuck it._ With one last push, this is what he does, eyes on the prize, sun strong for the beginnings of a new day. When the morning breeze hits, Hajime grits his teeth together and flies up the park slope to collect him. _Forget the questions._ When he finds the usual field as it should be, all thistle weeds and billowy clouds, he stops and treads on, slow and steady. He reminds himself he's not trying to win any races today. Energy must be saved for the days that need it.

From the corner of his eye, past the attempts he makes to hide, Hajime sees him for the first time in two and a half weeks.

Under the red mailbox, Oikawa's sitting in his mourning suit, head buried in his arms, knees raised over his chest. His wrists hang limply, empty without Hajime's bracelet to wear, and he looks like he might be asleep.

"Hey."

Getting closer, Hajime watches the push and pull of a restful breath, then draws one in, relieved, for himself. Draping a jacket over Oikawa, Hajime watches the way he blinks back into life, gentle at first like he's seen a thousand times before under the covers, before gaining all his senses. Curiously, before any sort of hello, the first thing Oikawa does is tie the sleeves around him, like a child refusing to admit he might be cold.

"Put the jacket on," Hajime insists, and all the potential ice between them is broken. No questions. No _why did it take so long for you to come back?_ He sighs about this, and Oikawa smiles because he knows he's won this battle. Wrapping the jacket around himself, he gets up from the ground and takes his first steps with little trepidation.

"I was having a nice dream, I think," Oikawa says, as the thistles waver at their knees. The stems all bend to one side, all in way that makes them look like they're forming a rolling sea. "But someone kept calling me, and it was really annoying, so I figured that I should come back to put him in his place."

"Did you?" Hajime asks, playing along.

Oikawa hums by the tune of the wind before dying down with it.

"I don't think I have the heart to," he says, staring back at Hajime. "I feel like I've been gone longer this time, so maybe that _someone_ had a reason to call me." 

Hajime finds momentary weakness in keeping any sights on Oikawa, and lets them fall on the ground below before rising back up. 

"You were gone," _and it sucked_ , Hajime wants to say, "but you're here now," he tells him in an almost-whisper. "And that's all that really matters." 

Oikawa nods, lowers his head like he's the relenting now. With something soft, he whispers "twice more," like that countdown isn't anything foreboding. Up the field, he walks on without Hajime, and tosses his head back to the sky to shake his head of any leftover sleep.

"Don't—" Hajime doesn't finish his sentence, and Oikawa throws him a look, all squinted, like he doesn't want him to either. There is no point to hiding, or denying. By all that is bad, and what is left of _good_ —Oikawa Tooru has two lives left, and Hajime knows he must take what he can get.

(But _hell_ , will he try to keep him this time. Like every time.)

Up on the trail, Hajime extends his strides and speeds up into a run. Oikawa catches his drift instantly, and soon they're both racing to nowhere in particular, breaths heavy but laughing, incredulous maybe, but familiar for sure, because they get to be together again. 

And when Hajime wins their race this time, he does nothing to take a victory prize. He just extends his hand behind him, hopes that Oikawa will take it, and holds on, harder than he ever has before, when he does.

  


**_x_ **

  
  


When Hajime ties a new bracelet around Oikawa's wrist, they are on a train back to Kichijoji, and it is the morning after a peculiar autumn rain. Air still wet, Oikawa keeps the window open despite the chill, and Hajime feels the tremble of nimble fingers filling the cracks between his. But before Hajime can scold Oikawa, the latter just pulls his jacket on closer around him, huddles himself in it with fluttering blinks like that itself might be flirting, and sits back in his seat, admiring the newness of the bonded leather.

Hajime stares across at him, takes one look at his accompanying carry-on and the volleyball resting on top, and shakes off the doldrums heating up the back of his ears.

"Say, Iwa-chan," Oikawa calls after him.

"Yeah?" 

"You know how class starts in two days?" Oikawa asks, a little too innocently.

"Yeah."

"And you know how practices aren't set to resume for another five days _after_ that?"

Hajime frowns. "Out with it. What's in that head of yours this time?"

"I was thinking," Oikawa ponders out loud, fingers making maps on the frosted glass. "Why don't we skip class until then? Go somewhere nice, like Rome, or Dubai. _Jamaica_." He sighs. "You know, plane tickets could be cheaper too, since there aren't any holidays on the way..."

"Some of us have classes to pass, Oikawa," Hajime blurts out the window, tone heavy and flat like the stretch of some endless dry plain, and instantly feels the need to swallow back his words. He knows how a standard quip should sound by now, what words he'd usually use, every inflection made to say _that's a terrible idea Oikawa_ or _don't be ridiculous Oikawa,_ and he suspects—no, _knows_ —that his best friend might recognize the anomaly, too.

Undoubtedly, _second nature_ comes in just so. Oikawa rises out of his seat, a searching tempest rising by the way of a tilted head and a curious little frown. Hajime shrugs it off because he really did mean it to be a joke, but he knows there's no fooling anyone at this point.

"What do you mean by that, Iwa-chan?" Oikawa asks gravely. When the last word leaves his mouth, the train hits a bump, making them both jolt by the twitch of raised shoulders. Newer tensions aside, it's not like the two of them have had the best luck with trains before, and the old memory of a crash and two deaths never helps with easing nerves.

Still, Hajime breathes it in and lets it scatter across his skin by new goosebumps. There's a funny thing about fear—at least to Hajime, at least, because it isn’t something he thinks about at the forefront. While some come like anchors, always there but hidden and running too deep for anyone to see, more likely than not he finds them too late. Whether it was closet monsters, or the other team hitting the twenty-five mark first at playoffs, Hajime only found fear at the end of the road. After countless time running on the straight and narrow path—not away, though, _never away_ —he'd come one of those _ends_. Fears lived by the cliffs and at the very edge, and always made Hajime come to unwanted short stops. In such instances, with little space left to move, all there was left to say was, _'deep breath, and don’t look down.'_

“I have to start looking past volleyball,” Hajime admits, head on, for the first time ever. “Something as a backup, I mean. I’ll never know _what that is_ if I’m skipping class and going off to _Rome._ ”

Oikawa shakes his head. “But..." 

"But what?"

"But you’re going to make it with me, aren’t you, Iwa-chan?”

_Deep breath, and don’t look down. Don't look down._

(But maybe it’s just a matter of starting.)

“I’m going to keep going with you, however far I can,” Hajime tells him, because that much is true. It’ll always be. “But if we want to _build_ something together, whatever it is we have, I need to think of other ways to fight, too.”

"Other ways," Oikawa scoffs out. " _Backups_."

"Don't make this about giving up. Because I'm not. I'm really not—"

"It's fine, Iwa-chan," Oikawa lilts, all pleasantly dramatic like a movie star by the poolside, and he sighs in inconvenience. "May you find your fortunes in literature class with the next great _Tale of Genji_ , or bioengineering. Maybe culinary school, even if you still burn the _pork katsu_." He gets up, takes his carry-on with him from the overhead compartment, and saunters out to the aisle.

Hajime leans over the seat and shakes his head. "Don't be this way," he can only say, bite missing, bark gone, but the weakness of it is enough to make Oikawa gulp down. He sours for a moment before holding his head up high, and makes his discontent known by plopping himself in the empty seat in front of Hajime.

“Oikawa.”

He doesn’t answer.

“ _Tooru_.”

“What's going to happen to us, Iwa-chan?” Oikawa says, all quiet, voice almost lost under the wheels and the rumble and the fall of a new rain, but Hajime hears him just fine. He just chooses not to say anything this time around, pretends not to hear him at all—because it might be one of those rare times where the silence helps more than anything.

 

**_x_ **

  


**.12**

**my favorite nights**

**make me sear from the unrest.**

**in sighs, i cherish.**

  


When they get back to Kichijoji, the apartment is a flurry of soot and shards and other broken things. Hajime expected as much from the witching hour—and the biggest one to date, at that—but he knows a storm is a still a storm, and that the gods can be as merciless as they come. He reaches for Oikawa in instinct when he's the first to step into the mess, because he might fret about the overturned plants or the torn-up books on the floor, but he does no such thing. Oikawa just slides the dust away with his foot, wipes off the filth off a record, thankfully still intact, and and sets it carefully on the player. As Hajime would learn down the road, for the umpteenth time and only for good in the quiet of an empty apartment years later, it was once again Frederic Chopin's _Fantaisie-Impromptu in C-Sharp Minor, Op. posth. 66._ To it, Oikawa almost dances, making art in the soot and stopping short to open the window for air.

Hajime notices how he hasn't started the record from the beginning this time, opting to let it drift in the soft sound of its _largo_ instead. He's tempted to ask why, but he knows Oikawa is still mad from the way he hums so diligently, like he's the only one in the room. 

"I know you're not speaking to me," Hajime says with a sigh, "but we have to clean this place up." 

Oikawa takes his hands off the sill and looks back at Hajime, eyes squinting, mouth formed into a tiny frown. 

"Because it's home," Hajime tells him, coming closer. "It's ours," he adds, offering a hand down to Oikawa, "and I'm not giving up on that." 

Without a word, still determined to play his games, Oikawa relents with a slide of his palm into Hajime's, ends his crouch by the window, and lingers too long in the hold. 

They spend the rest of the day cleaning up the apartment, their salvaged records on repeat in place of talking. Hajime does recognize a few of the ones Oikawa has put on, like Nagai Frank's _Yurakucho de aimasho_ or American standards like Sinatra's _Fly Me to the Moon,_ even going as far as singing along to some of it in careless intervals, but he's mostly too focused on putting their furniture back together, or sweeping the floors to keep it up for too long. It's hours before either one of them stop to take a break to eat dinner ( _chirashi_ for Hajime, and _katsu don_ for Oikawa, because the former always remembers his usual order), and another two after that to finally kick their shoes off. Barring the broken glass in some of the windows, the chairs he could not save, and the perished knick knacks, Hajime considers the spotlessness a small and much needed victory. 

It even feels like some place new, when he puts his mind to it. Like moving day in spring.

"I'm going to sleep soon," Hajime announces after they've both showered for the night, and he's not sure why he needs such proclamations. They have a funny living arrangement, with their two bedrooms, because it's not like they keep them separately; they make a game of it, sometimes, to pick either one at random, and the other will follow not too long after. When Hajime chooses the bedroom to the right this time, ready to relax and shake of the day's silent treatment, he wonders if Oikawa will come, too. But when he doesn't, and he is content to sit by the outlet and the record player, _Fly Me to the Moon_ switched out for Louis Armstrong's _La Vie en Rose,_ Hajime just slides the door behind him, only almost closed.

Hajime doesn't bother counting the minutes until Oikawa slinks into the room behind him. It is not a given, and he knows that, so he just sits down on their bed and waits for Oikawa to say the first thing all day.

But he doesn't.He doesn't say a word. Oikawa just charges up the room and kisses the daylights out of Hajime, because he has the nerve, _the fucking nerve—_ and _god, to hell with it—he's missed this,_ so he just kisses him right back, pulls him down onto the bed to feel him more, too. The thing is, Oikawa _lets_ himself be pulled, and they get to be together, but Hajime knows their out of their usual rhythm, one that's usually so easy, _the easiest_ , at a time like this. He knows it has never been so desperate _to be._ At the pressure, the absolute worst kind, Hajime tears himself away from Oikawa, lingers too close, and bangs the back of his head on the wall to catch his breath. Keeping on him, much too close, Oikawa just wipes his mouth off and says nothing once more. In that instance, _La Vie en Rose_ stops playing.

"I don't mind," Hajime understates, "I _really_ don’t, but not when there's something on your mind." He pinches a bit of Oikawa's hair between his fingers and tucks it behind his ear, hovering over his forehead to flick him next. But Oikawa catches him at the last second, all as if he _waited_ for the last second, and cups Hajime's hand into his.

"Oikawa," he calls out once more.

Nothing. Hajime feels Oikawa's hand tighten around him, pads of fingers digging into the back of his palm.

"If you're trying to start a fight, I'm not going to play along with you— _I'm really not_ , because I don't _want to_ fight _—_ "

"Iwa-chan, no—"

"Because I hate your _silent treatments_ , you know, your _long ones_ at least when I _know_ something's not right and—"

"Iwa-chan!" With the call of his name, Oikawa is the one to flick Hajime on the forehead this time.

"Sorry." Hajime shuts himself up, knowing he's still got the pent up _whatever_ to shake off. He rolls his head off the wall, sits up straight to face Oikawa in the eye, and counts to three in his head, because he's _shaking_ at this point and everything's a mess, more than their apartment with the broken windows and the overturned furniture and the cracked flower pots. Because Oikawa Tooru's got two lives, but he's a star, and he's bright and he's beautiful and he's _everything_ —but it can be easy to have _everything_ slip through your hands, right until there's nothing left.

But the thing is, Oikawa isn't the type to let go of anything easily, and Hajime has to remember he isn't an exception.

"I wanted to make up," Oikawa tells him, all in hushed tones, because he is terrible at apologizing sometimes, most times, so this might not even be that. He just stares, eyes cast on Hajime like he's made the biggest mistake of his life, because it's hard to be the one to break first in these sorts of cold wars. _Sorry_ is not simple. At this, Oikawa just lurches forward to plant a kiss on Hajime, barely there but not meant to tease. Oikawa Tooru does not tease at times like this. 

In return, Hajime pushes himself off the wall and drags the touch of his lips over the plush of Oikawa's. They stay like this for awhile, all to make up, and the trek is slow, their breathing hard, but not arduous.

"Iwa-chan," Oikawa calls out in between the long drawl of kisses, all broken up in a plead. Sometimes Hajime wonders if Oikawa just likes saying his name for the sake of saying it, all _Iwa-chan_ this and _Iwa-chan_ that—all like a chirpy morning bird, but he knows it is purposeful this time around. _Iwa-chan_ is the pull of tide towards warmth and the rest of the night. _Iwa-chan_ is the soft command of a boy to be king.

At the call, Hajime steadies himself and goes in to kiss Oikawa harder. Oikawa croons in something wanting, voice whittling off into antsy sighs, when Hajime distracts himself further with a hand up Oikawa's t-shirt. It's easy to drift and drown by the touch of him, Hajime reminds himself, and he quickly remembers why they've always had it so easy under the sheets.

Backing off the bed, Oikawa hoists himself up against Hajime by the wrap of his arms, breath like fresh steam on the latter's cheek. Burying himself in the nape of Oikawa's neck, Hajime sweeps across his skin, slow and heavy over the line of a collarbone, with the sort of gravity to pull the two of them back down altogether. 

 _"Iwa-chan,"_ the call comes again, insisting, practically a moan. Hajime will do everything to beckon to it.

His hands linger under Oikawa's shirt again, while Hajime feels the tug at the hem of his. He’s seen Oikawa naked a hundred times by now, but there’s always something sacred about getting to that point in the first place; because for all the instances he's been called hasty or _harsh_ or quick to get to the point _,_ undressing Oikawa Tooru has always remained an event in itself. It was part of that _ease_ in their time behind closed doors, one that Hajime might crave and remember for all time to come—and that he could drive Oikawa wild just by the push of fabric up his chest, hands clutching at his sides with his back hitched up (and _oh god,_ how Hajime loved that hitch) might be enough to rile him up for the rest of his lifetimes.

This time is no exception, how Oikawa sprawls and sputters underneath him. But past any false modesty, and the way he hides his sighs behind an open hand, there's a gleam in his eye about all of this, under those heavy, hiding lids and and the coy shelter of hands. _Come and get me,_ he means to challenge him, subtle as usual, and Hajime wholeheartedly accepts. 

So he continues. _Let the night wear on_. Thumbs graze over the jut of Oikawa's hipbones, dragging his pants down with the hook of fingers on elastic, careful not to displace the ever-present knee guard. Oikawa helps Hajime away from his shirt too, before giving in the breaths he needs to catch. Between their tiny pauses, they take their time to kiss and claw and uncover, and drifting touches meaning more than accidental grazes. They know dangerously close is not close enough. Let every motion be honest. A million words are exchanged, by the small changes in wrinkled foreheads and the tiniest of frowns, but none are ever quite said. 

 _Oh, won't you stay?_ Oikawa tugs at Hajime's wrist, the leather band of his bracelet. _Won't you come and get me?_ He coos out a breath, lips parted then closed then barely parted again. 

Hajime dives in once more, sliding hands on Oikawa's legs until he's got his knees up and bent and tempted to buckle. When he kisses down the the perfected lines of Oikawa's chest, gentle presses mixed with almost-bites—careful as to keep the setter guessing between the two—he lets his fingers pad the side of his bare thighs, attentions all-encompassing. Down, down, down, Hajime moves, hands slow dancing to no song at all at the sides, the curves and smooth muscle, mouth a plethora of heaving kisses, dragging motions against skin.

 _I'll come and get you,_ Hajime thinks, as he descends between Oikawa's thighs, ushering over funny little moles and the goosebumps mixed between, the stand-up hairs and underside softness. Oikawa's body makes a tectonic shift when he arches his back up once more, exposing every jut of definition and hidden beauty marks, rolling hipbone hills and the rapid rise and fall of breath. He is getting camellia-red in the places Hajime's kissed (which never might be enough for the likes of either of them, if they had a whole lifetime just to be like this).

Oikawa searches for Hajime's wrist again, and clasps on before letting go."Iwa-chan," he barely edges out, when Hajime's getting to his most innermost parts, and he buries a deep sigh into the pillow under him.

"Are you okay?"

Oikawa nods. "Just...keep going." He even cracks a smile. "Don't you know? Coming back from the void just makes people more sensitive."

"Is that theory or fact?" Hajime asks between kisses. He places another one a centimeter closer, attentions paid close enough to leave hickeys.

" _Mhm—_ well, it's like coming out all fresh, don't you think, so it's like you've never touched me before _._ "

"Should I stop, then?" Hajime asks, half-serious.

"Don't start... _ah..._ mixing up my words," Oikawa says, guards lowering with voice nothing but a tremor, and Hajime knows it isn't because he's got him in the right places. “Just... _please,_ ” he insists, and there is a sadness to it, passed along in deep breaths and shaken heads and vacant stares—in Hajime’s recognition of such unspoken things, and because the other boy must know _that he knows,_ _‘I’d never forget things like this, even if my body ever does,’_ Oikawa immediately blinks the sentiment away, edges his body closer to Hajime, and distracts him with the possibility of things to come. _Keep going,_ he begs solely with a steady gaze regained, hands skirting Hajime's wrist once more, _and forget the rest._  

“Iwa-chan,” Oikawa calls once more, trying to be strong, but the whimper of it betrays his feints once more. _Iwa-chan._ Time again and again and _again_. _Iwa-chan._ What is coded won’t be for long, when he’s always using the same combinations. 

And when the two of them do run away with it _,_ like waves forgetting about the lands they drift from, or vines forgetting the restraint against all things wild—because all things in nature must run rampant, anyway—Hajime wonders how far they will go without breaking down. Because through the fingers that run up and stroke, through the lips that lap up the growing heat in vulnerable places, Hajime knows he might start running on empty soon. Head a hazy mess, Hajime admits it’s hard not to, when he gets to see and feel and have Oikawa Tooru in a way no one else gets to. After a mess of torn condom wrappers and spilled lube and managing not to lose composure right then and there, Hajime bares down on Oikawa, both of them barely able to keep it together.

" _I-Iwa-chan—"_

Slow as he goes, in and in by just the barest millimeters, Hajime wonders if this is what melting feels like. After all their fooling around, from Miyagi to Tokyo, from locker rooms to bedrooms and even tatami room floors, he thinks he should be used to it by now, but he knows better than that: sex had always been a series of paradoxes for the two of them, like the coming of summer and winter. It was recoiling, and it was wanting. It was awkward yet _just right_ , fucking disastrous yet—god, was it always _sublime_.

Under him, Oikawa heats up all red and flushed and gaping and grinding. At the sight of him already partly-ruined, Hajime feels a chill zip down his back like none other. There is silence and stillness, like neither one of them want to give into this first, but Oikawa slowly unravels like he doesn't mind being the one to lose this time. Lips part in sighs and hands find a way to be held, and Oikawa raises himself to plant a kiss that is barely one at all. _Let the night wear on_ , he says by another one, stronger this time, with the press of his body against Hajime's. Oikawa Tooru is not the type to give anything up, but the way his whole being says _oh please_ — _please let me lose myself in you._  

"Iwa-cha _—hah..."_

"Fuck," Hajime sighs out, endlessly dizzy to the sounds and sights and _good_ this all feels. The bed creaks bed under them, and skin smacks in light sweat. Chests heave and push and pull into the other, and hands dance up the cut of Hajime's arms to clasp at the back of his neck. In the throes, Oikawa says it— _Hajime—_ and the continued call of it— _please, Hajime—_ almost kills him right then and there. 

" _Tooru_."

"Stay," Oikawa whispers to him next in secret, all pressed up in weak drawls against Hajime's ear. In the day, Oikawa would never be caught saying such blunt things, but grace never lasted long at times like this. Let honesty prevail once more. So " _stay_ " just urges him again and again, and Hajime finds himself more enraptured each time Oikawa mouths it. To chase it, _to keep it_ , Hajime digs in harder and deeper to get closer to him, to inch and inch until distance was nothing but a mere atom's worth between them. At the motions, the change of pace, Oikawa's _stay_ sbecome nothing but vague little gutturals and pleas into the night. For every push and shared sigh and catastrophic meeting, being with Oikawa becomes more and more like sharing a single pulse.

"I'm..." Oikawa can't even bear to finish, choosing to dig his nails into Hajime's shoulder blades instead, head cocked back on the plush of pillow under him.

"It's f-fine." Hajime has to admit that he's close too, and that they never last long when either one of them is fresh out of the void—but it doesn't matter to him either way. Nights are long for a reason, and Hajime isn't the type to whither away so easily. Breaking is easy when you can just build yourself up once more. Because he has seen Oikawa in ruins like this before, all bare and heaving and heavy-hearted, and Oikawa, in turn, has seen the same of Hajime. So he might let himself break over and over tonight, past any point of pride or pretending _it's just another night like this,_ because it's _not_ the easiest sex they've ever had, because they still have things to sort out, but it matters. It affirms.

Over and over and _over,_ it affirms.

"Hajime."

"Hajime—"

 _"Hajime._ "

He just hopes that Oikawa can understand this, past anything they've done in private, past the darkness of this small room, past even the grand courts where they play. _I want to build a life with you_ , Hajime wants to tell Oikawa, so desperately he's clutching at him and grasping to stay. His body feels so light that dying right here and now might be a good option, too.

But Hajime does no such thing. Past the pressure, the downsides to unmitigated pleasure, he just yanks Oikawa's legs closer to him by the wrap of his arms, strength trumping the propensity to fall apart, and keeps his pace with him. Oikawa keels back completely, head crawling up in something harrowed and huffing, when Hajime erases all the remaining distance between them, kisses unfocused but longing, the rest of him all enveloped to the absolute hilt. In the quiet of their strain, _deeper_ and _deeper_ and _deeper,_ the pulse of them slows until it's a few beats away from flatlining altogether, but the both of stay alive to see another day. _Deeper_ and _deeper_ and _deeper,_ Hajime feels him—his best friend, his petulant boy king, his home unlimited.

_"Tooru."_

And when the both of them do finally fall apart, all sputtering and spectacularly _unspectacular_ , Oikawa finds Hajime's hand to hold, latching on tighter than he ever has before, like they’re making the plunge together. Bodies jerk and _hitch_ to fit like puzzle pieces, flexed and searing before letting go completely.

In the proceeding silence, they both fall immobilized from the wreckage, nothing but the catching of breaths and the fall and rise of sticky chests. Body all heavy, Hajime lies there for a moment, burying his face in the nape of Oikawa's neck before shifting off of him altogether. He remains close from there, their legs still tangled and their noses still touching, and lets their hands remain held. With the other, Hajime lets his fingers run up the crease of Oikawa's spine, millimeter by aching millimeter, and lets his lips copy the same journey across the space that separates them. 

"Hey." 

But before Hajime can place a kiss, Oikawa interrupts him with the sort of words he'd only say at a time like this, all bare and laid out. Nowhere to go but to Hajime, and he will gladly wait at the end of the path.

"Are we okay?" Oikawa asks.

Hajime's eyes go wide for a moment before settling. He beckons Oikawa to sit up in bed, right at the edge, and follows right after him. 

"Come here," Hajime insists with little fanfare, raising Oikawa's leg over his lap. He finds a loosened knee guard wrung around his ankle, slides it right back up Oikawa's calf to put back in place, and swoops in close, to give his answer. When Hajime does go in to kiss Oikawa this time, it is gentle and full, eyes shut closed and cherishing. He smiles through it, even if he thinks he might cave in, because if there's anything he's never been so sure of, it's this: 

"We will be." 

_No matter where we are, we will be._

  


**_x_ **

  
  


_Dear obaachan and ojiichan,_

_Have you ever been awake to see the sun rise over Tokyo? It's almost too cold to do that now, but I thought it'd be worth it after the night we both had. So Iwa-chan and I bundled up in some of our old sweaters, wrapped each other in scarves, and watched the day start over the tops of buildings. It was nice, actually, like watching a tiny version of the big bang right before my eyes, and at that moment I wondered if Iwa-chan felt the same._

_But I didn't ask though. I actually just ended up dozing off on his shoulder, and Iwa-chan let me stay there until the both of us were shivering from the wind. He told me to get inside, before either one of us could catch our deaths, and I just followed him back into the apartment._

_Ah, but you don't need to hear my boring stories. If you're up there, wondering about the two of us, just know that we'll be fine._

_It took some reminding, but I think I can be sure of that now._

_-Tooru_

  
  


**_x_ **

  
  


By the time morning comes, Hajime's already up and sitting in bed, slipping on a pair of mismatched socks and rolling up his jean cuffs. Oikawa is in the kitchen, taking his turn with making breakfast (and making a whole mess of things, probably), but Hajime doesn't really mind the _clang_ and clatter of pans or the incessant humming—there's something lively about the sound of it, along with the smell of freshly cooked rice and salted mackerel pike, so he takes it all in, tells himself that this will be a good day, _a great day,_ and slips on his other sock. When he leaves the room altogether, he stares back at the rumpled sheets and the strewn-out clothes from the night before, hides a smile behind an attempted grimace, and goes to greet _the worst cook in the history of history_ on the floor of their apartment. 

"You didn't burn the mackerel too badly this time," Hajime remarks, sitting down on the blanket across from Oikawa like they're going for a picnic in the park.

" _Good morning_ to you, too, Iwa-chan," Oikawa singsongs, feigning a tiny frown before taking a bite of his rice. He always eats that first whenever they eat breakfast together nowadays, because he claims he cooks the rice _just right_ and he's got to make a point of it. That's usually Hajime's cue to tell him it's the _only_ thing he can really get right, but the tease ends before it even leaves his lips. Still cotton mouthed from all the kissing the night before, he just mashes his lips closed and leaves the conversation to telepathy. They both know how it goes by now. Getting his drift, Oikawa tempts Hajime with a morsel of rice, precariously balanced on the tips of his chopsticks; this is part where he usually says, _aw, just go on and taste it, Iwa-chan! It's the best rice you'll ever eat in your life!_  

Not meaning to, Hajime laughs a little laugh. Oikawa does his best to hide the forming smile on his face too, but it's no use for either one of them. When Oikawa flushes a slight pink, Hajime reaches over and pinches one of his cheeks, thumb finding the closest hickey on the high part of his neck, and keeps it there. 

" _Hickeys_ ," Oikawa scoffs, tipping his chin up in a _hmph_. "You'd think we'd know how to avoid those by now," he lilts as casually as possible, pulling up the collar of his flannel shirt.

Hajime grins, unabashed. "I don't mind them so much," he tells him. "They're nice, when you think about them."

Oikawa really makes a frown this time.

 _"Almost,"_ he emphasizes with eyes down at his bowl, and Hajime knows he's won this one. In victory, he lets the room go quiet again, content to fill his empty stomach and flip through some readings for his classes. Hajime feels Oikawa stare at him from across the breakfast spread, a keen observer over the guise of a decent meal. 

"What's wrong now?" Hajime asks, not bothering to look up from his copy of _Ohara's Human Anatomy: Sixth Edition,_ eyes tracing casually over the illustrations of knee fractures and strange, veiny muscles.

"Nothing," Oikawa says. "You just shouldn't be late for class."

"Class?"

"You heard me."

"Didn't you propose skipping it altogether on the train?"

"I did." 

"Isn't that why we had that fight in the first place?"

"We made up, didn't we?" Oikawa asks, pulling down his collar down for Hajime to see the remaining evidence.

"I know," Hajime gulps down. "But still—"

"Well, now I'm saying that you shouldn't be late," Oikawa tells him rather casually, having no more of this conversation. He calmly looks back down at the bowl in his hands, takes another piece of fish off their shared plate, and puts it down without eating it. Shy and looming, Oikawa steels into that boy king once more before facing Hajime, eyes all bright and buoyant and _there's no use in backing down_ , _is there?_ He blinks away the last of the bad tidings he's still got leftover, all that wide-eyed panic he's seen countless times over the years, and lowers into something calm.

"Because you have to do well, don't you?" Oikawa asks coyly, once more on the meandering path, but Hajime is never one to get lost on it.

"Of course." 

"Because you can't do what you want to do if you don't well."

Hajime nods along. "I know."

"Because if you waste time on top of that, how on _earth_ are you going to play volleyball, too?" Oikawa muses. "Hell, maybe we should even really start sleeping in different rooms, because I know I can be the _worst_ distraction—"

"Now, I don't know about that," Hajime stops him right then and there, leaning over the breakfast blanket to get closer to him. "No need to go to extremes."

Oikawa tries to stifle a laugh, but he lets it squeak through when Hajime goes in to kiss him. They stay like this for a while, all quiet but too tender to admit to in this time of day, and they only separate when Oikawa pats him lightly on the cheek to stop.

"Well, let's go, then," Oikawa tells Hajime. He gets up first from the blanket, offering a hand along the way, and Hajime takes it by the curl of his fingers. He smiles, leaning over to steal one more kiss for the road.

"Let's go," Hajime reaffirms.

  
  


**_x_ **

  
  
  


_Dear obaachan and ojiichan,_  

_Does it get cold up in heaven?_

_I just ask because it's been chillier than usual at this time of year, and it's hard to concentrate on anything when you're always looking for a blanket to hide under. I might even have to talk to Iwa-chan about getting a new space heater for the apartment this winter, but he'll probably just shrug it off because it's him we're talking about._

_("What do you mean, icekawa? It feels just fine in here! Stop whining!" Blah blah blah. I know how it goes.)_

_And you know what? He's been so busy that he probably hasn't even noticed the seasons changing! Because when he isn't playing volleyball, he's studying, and when he isn't studying, he's playing volleyball. He meant it when he said he was going to do both, and he's really been balancing both on his shoulders. It can be kind of scary too, because overworking yourself can really be the death of you (and believe me, I know this) so I guess it's been up to me to make sure he doesn't._

_(Because your beloved grandson really is a model citizen.)_

  _(Just kidding.)_

_(But not really.)_

_Ah, but am I boring you two again? I'm just restless talking to myself at home, I guess, whenever I don't feel like going out after practice and Iwa-chan goes to imprison himself in the library. I remember starting this letter with a purpose, one that spans past how chilly it gets in the apartment (because that's really just a trivial matter). Sometimes, as you may know, I lose my train of thought when there's a lot to say or do or whatever._

_Maybe it was never there at all, because it's a feeling that's more than 'aw, I'm cold,' or 'wow, I'm tired.' It feels older than anything I've ever known, even if it's not always here with me. I also know that it cannot always stay._

_But still—it feels nice while I have it, I guess. Like ease. I never thought I'd be around it again, with two lives and all. But things aren't so bad, even past all the new obstacles and how terminal people see me sometimes. Even the city, while still running like cities tend to do, feels a little sparser than I'd like. I reckon that some people are afraid to come back. On some days, we don't even have enough people to play our practice matches._

_I kind of get that, though. A million things could go wrong, like another witching hour, or the other normal dangers that threaten to kill you. But in light of this, I've decided not to look into too much. Breathe, Tooru, breathe! You got games to win, and a whole Iwa-chan to bother._  

_(Hehe. I think I really am at ease.)_

_I guess it's funny, what the change of seasons can bring you._

 

_-Tooru_

  
  


**_x_ **

  
  
  


On one of the days Hajime has granted himself a much-needed break from anatomy and practice drills, the two of them decide to spend their evening sitting on a bench in Inokashira Park, taking turns reading from a shared copy of Kawai Sora’s _Sora Tabi Nikki_. Oikawa's especially into it tonight, voice dramatic in his narration, and Hajime just lets him take over after a while when he realizes that he'll never contend with him in enthusiasm. Against the lull of every spoken word, Hajime lets himself lie against Oikawa's shoulder and drift off into a semi-sleep.

"Iwa-chan," Oikawa calls out, and Hajime barely drifts out of drowsiness.

"Mm?"

"What do you think was in that book?" he asks, shutting the one in his hands. 

"What book?"

"You know, the one with my name on it."

Hajime only scoffs. " _Your name?_ You never even remember to write your name in your textbooks. I mean, look at the way you've stolen my copy of _Sora Tabi Nikki, thief_ kawa—"

"I don't mean _that_ , Iwa-chan." Oikawa doesn't resist when Hajime swipes _Sora Tabi Nikki_ away from him, hands going limp in the grip of it. His sights loom up past the street lamps, right to the scattered stars of the night sky.

Hajime raises himself from Oikawa's shoulder. "Then what do you mean, then?" 

"I don't quite remember it precisely, because I never got a chance to read it. It was that damned _witching hour,_ and we were running, and you grabbed the book from me and stuffed it in your bag. Then when I tried looking for it the other day, it wasn't there anymore." Oikawa tells him, like he's about to start on a fairy tale, or pen a new urban legend for the streets of Kichijoji. The remaining leaves shake on their branches to protest his stories, but Hajime senses no malice in the atmosphere tonight. By now, he knows ( _full well_ , in fact) what it smells like—like rain during thunderstorms, blazing apartments alongside the track, burnt rubber of a bicycle wheel trying to stop—but all that lingers is the scent of Oikawa’s body wash and the steam of oolong tea from their thermos. At once, Hajime lowers his guards, but never, ever completely.

“Oh,” Hajime recalls with the smallest sort of horror in his throat. He gulps it down, takes his turns at staring at the sky, and remembers it, too. “ _Tooru’s Infinite Summer,_ ” he tells Oikawa, and the latter raises up in tension. He takes a deep breath—they both do, their exhales to the tune of an incoming breeze—and settle back into rest.

After that, they don't talk about it further. Hajime's not even sure of where the book's gone by now, all lost by his mother's sorting and sifting after coming home, but he seeks to count it as a blessing. Oikawa just shifts closer to Hajime on the bench, away from such mocking titles and the overcast of the remaining _two,_ and laughs to himself with eyes down. Fingers slink over the space between Hajime's, and soon hands are held like they really do have something _infinite._

"You should really be the world's next great poet, Iwa-chan," Oikawa muses to change the subject. "So you can write stories about us one day."

"Don't start about that," Hajime says without any bite.

Oikawa sighs. "You don't have to make them sad ones. I wouldn't want you to."

Hajime holds their hands tighter and does an awkward mix between a nod and a no.

"I could write them down," Hajime says, "but I wouldn't do any of them justice." He stares at Oikawa straight in the eye, stiffening his lip so it doesn't sound like he's reading from his obituary in the newspaper. "Because someone could read whatever I wrote, think it's a good story, and be done with it—but the thing is, they'd never know the whole thing. Like how I wrap your knee at night, or how you can't cook for _shit._ All those things. They'll only know specks of you, and that's why I can't do it."

Oikawa winces a bit, the tiniest frown forming on his face. Hajime understands full well— _you're being too sentimental, Iwa-chan—_ but both of them don't make an effort to stop it.

Instead, he says, "you really should be a poet, Iwa-chan."

And to that, Hajime shakes his head, loosens his grip on Oikawa without letting go, and settles on a silence without stories. He sneezes against the cold air, heat rising on his back like a fever ready to fight, and he wonders if it's a sign of something to come. Whether it be poetry not yet written, or stories not yet told, he muses that the gods must be talking about him up in the higher limits.

"Iwa-chan, is someone gossiping about you?" Oikawa teases.

"Probably," Hajime humors him right back, "but it better be good."

  
  


**_x_ **

 

**.13**

**i once walked so far,**

**death tried to trip me. but no!**

**i did not stumble.**

  
  


By the end of November, a definite winter at their doorstep, Hajime is bedridden with the dreaded Iwaizumi family flu, dazed with a terrible fever and horrible coughing fits. He's angrier about it this time around, because he had finally gotten himself a starting spot for an official match this afternoon and _nothing_ was going to stop him from playing, but their captain _Santa-chan_ had bristled his stubbly beard and decreed, " _there is no way you're getting the rest of the team sick."_ Hajime knows he was right of course, as much as he hates to admit it, so he resigns himself to cursing this particular strain of flu, how his immune system falls for it every time, and thus the loss at a chance to play.

Stuck under the sheets, he wonders how Oikawa is faring. He had been terribly antsy about everything in the apartment this morning, pacing back and forth over the plays he had studied the night before, shifting gears and rewriting whole set-ups in his head because Hajime couldn't play. He must be warming up on the court by now, finicky with his hands and making nonsense with maneuvered fingers. He'll probably compose himself after that, just like he always does, wiping the sweat off his sides and calling the team together. Hajime even sneers up at the ceiling when he thinks of the faces Oikawa will make at them in the team huddle: it will probably be one-tenths pleasant like a smile or a wink, an early triumph over nerves and worry, only to fall away for the boldness to follow. 

 _Damn_ , Hajime thinks, when he imagines how Oikawa will keep it in the eyes, blazing in all fury. He will be like the hottest day in a record-high summer, relentless and ready to pervade over his team and the crowds above, the opponents at his feet. He will never stifle though, because he has crafted himself not to. In fact, like all continuing paradoxes and things unexplained, he will keep his teammates at the oddest fringes of comfort.

"We'll win," he might say with nothing but that fleeting smile, that gleam in his eye, the way he slams down the ball in his first warm-up serve. 

"We'll definitely win," Hajime might've said back. _Would’ve_.

But by the time Hajime's done thinking about how Oikawa might be, he's got his shoes laced up, his duffle bag slung over his shoulders, and a ticket to ride. He slaps a flu mask over his mouth on the platform, careful to keep to himself in the emptiest part of the train car when it comes, and makes sure he isn't dazed enough to miss his stop. When he comes into the second gym, Hajime is sweating up a storm and more out of breath than he should be, just as about the match is supposed to start. It hasn't yet though, much to his horror, and he's already gone from the stands when he sees a lack of players on the bench.

"Nevermind a bench," he hears Santa-chan gruff past the locker room doors. "We don't even have enough for a starting lineup. We're going to have to forfeit this match."

It doesn't take Hajime too long to barge in. He should've figured that this would happen, given all things _aftermath_. Practicing with a full team was a miracle some days, and players were already threatening to transfer from Hosei after the witching hours—and when Santa-chan speaks of an overturned bus on the highway and four other players also suffering from a rather relentless flu season, Hajime knows the gods do not mean for them to play today. To them, he just puts on his jersey, says _oh, but we will_ , and completes a six man rotation. 

Santa-chan does not protest, but Oikawa does. He frowns deep, disgusted almost, and swipes a thumb across Hajime's fevered forehead to slick off the sweat.

"You're sick, Iwa-chan," Oikawa says, "you could drop dead by the end of this match."

Hajime looks away, merely to pick up a practice ball he's found on the ground. "Don't joke about things like that," he muses with him for once, straightening his spine and letting the ball fly out of his hands in a serve. It sails over to the other side, more precise than usual, and nothing more is said on the matter. Hajime just slides a hand over Oikawa's, all discreet in a place they are nothing but seen, squeezes tight, and lets go in the next instance. With a nod, he gives his reassurances— _let me be your ace, and I'll be sure to play the part._ Oikawa understands at once, as much as he might not want to this time, and resumes focus. Hand unclasp after that, though a promise's touch does not fade. 

" _Hoseeeeeei! Hosei! Hosei! Hosei! Ho-sei!"_

"Iwa-chan!" Oikawa shouts out, when he flits the ball from his fingertips and right to Hajime for the first point. When he jumps up to spike it, he wonders if he's got cement stuck to his soles, but he ignores the toil and gets Hosei the early lead.

"Iwaizumi!"

"Iwa-chan!"

" _Hoseeeeeei! Hosei! Hosei! Hosei! Ho-sei!"_  

When he scores again, Hajime wonders if he's going to beat the goddamned flu this time around. He gets his answer when his breathing swells into a sure burn, and it gets harder to land on his feet after every time. Still, he keeps his eye on the ball, tracking it by a terrible blur (and _god,_ Hajime's never played in a blur before) before slamming it down once more. At once, Santa-chan calls for ten more points. Oikawa says, in that usual pleasant chirp, " _let's go, let's go_ ," and takes his turn to serve.

(And fuck, does the other team never see him coming. They whisper across the net, just to keep morale up— _oh, that Oikawa Tooru kid isn't anything special. Just a pretty boy for the fans to look at._ )

He is the eye of a storm yet to come, and Hajime imagines it with eyes facing the net: _pretty boy_ Oikawa Tooru, holding the ball out in the _pretty_ way he does. Watch the way it spins in his hands, why don't you, and think of it as a reprieve, _why don't you_ —until it is too late and the ball's already somewhere between two confounded onlookers. Oikawa conjures up just that, a whiplash that rings through the entire gymnasium, and lets the entire world know. Three times he does this, the next serve better than the last, and lets himself take all the usual casualties. Hajime thinks how he'd like to do the same.

" _Hoseeeeeei! Hosei! Hosei! Hosei! Ho-sei!"_

But when the other team just barely connects for a play and Hajime jumps up for a block, he feels the air deflate out of him even more than before. The ball gets past him this time, and his fingers feel brittle enough to break. Still, he knows not every block can be perfect, and he _has_ been working harder for them this time after all, so he shakes it off and goes on for the next play.

Oikawa looks back on the formation line. "Iwa-chan, do you need to—"

"I'm fine. _I'm fine_." (But he knows he isn't fine.)

This is apparent when Hajime barely makes the kill block the next time—he notices how each jump takes longer, with each spike more draining than the last, the match suddenly like a marathon in summer. He only disguises the sound of his wheezing with coughs between serves and the stamping of his feet during rallies, because this— _this—_ is the sort of _ace_ he's supposed to be. _Aces_ work through their worst. _Aces_ pick themselves up. They play, in sickness and in health, past witching hours and remaining lives, killing the specters of the past and _annoying_ insecurity.

Because _I am an ace_ , he urges to himself, over and over, pounding with fever.

 _I am an ace_ , he insists, when he barrels his way past the first set. They win it twenty-five to sixteen, with Hajime's ten points included, and they are just getting started.

 _I am an ace_ , he mutters up at the stands, when he loses his footing to the flu, and his knees hit the ground. But he refuses to fall over completely. _To collapse_ is not an option.

 _I am an ace,_ he hopes Oikawa can hear, when he's shouting " _Iwa-chan, Iwa-chan!"_ past the roar of a crowd, helping him back up on his feet and telling him to sit on the bench to rest. _Just thirty seconds_ , Oikawa begs, while Hajime only takes fifteen.

 _I am an ace,_ he pounds against his chest after the team huddle, and the captain Santa-Chan is telling Hajime, _"you're saving this goddamned match."_ He doesn't score the first point of the set this time, but he makes sure to get the next.

 _I am an ace,_ he says with a booming thud of a perfect spike.

 _I am an ace,_ he says, with another. _And another._

 _I am an ace,_ he threatens, when Hosei loses the second set to careless mistakes and rookie receiving, and Hajime thinks he might be close to running on empty. When he sees the other five on his team might be too, he thinks to suck it up and keep going. No wavering, and no withering. He hunches over a toilet between sets, head down and sick, before coming back up. _Fuck._  

Fuck.

_Fuck!_

_I am an ace,_ he mouths when the other team finds their groove and scores the first two points of the third set. When Hajime nearly chokes on an inhale, feet light like the gods might pluck him out of this gym altogether, he prays to stay on the ground. He _prays_ , head shaking, fists clenched, to jump and land out of his own accord. Sights seeing double, calls and cries muddling into nothingness, he still hears Oikawa call after him. _"Iwa-chan,"_ he starts off in just the smallest hint of worry, before roaring out—but not for points, or a completed play, or any game's well-being. It's for him. It is for Hajime, and Hajime alone.

 _"Hajime!"_  

And _god,_ how sweet that sound is. Hajime thinks he could die to it right here and now, but he doesn't dare. He never dares.

Because _I am an ace_ , he pleads with himself, over and over and _over_ , when he's sure he's breathing in anything but air, and his limbs are too languid to live with, too heavy to leap and reach. But still, he watches Hosei's points climb up until they've caught up to—and better yet, _surpassed_ the other team's—and he thinks, _just a little more_ , _just a little more,_ just a little more until he could collapse without abandon and let Oikawa rest easy in the aftermath, until he could prove, just absolutely _prove_ — _you know, you should've picked me to play this whole time._

When the other team scores, Hosei scores back. Twenty to twenty-one. " _Let's get the lead back!"_ Oikawa shouts. Hajime almost stays down when he stretches out to get a receive.

But once more, and with all the reluctance in the world, Oikawa helps him back up and the yank of his hand. When the whistle blows to keep playing, they keep their eyes locked and palms gripped. Fury, and only the warmest kind, returns to the boy king's eyes, and at once Hajime understands that loss is not an option.

At this point, Oikawa's passes exceed the point of perfect. Hajime finds a way to connect, turning fever into force. He lets it rip across his back and down his spine. Twenty-two to twenty-one. _Keep them coming!_

This time, Hajime thinks he really might die. _One more!_

"Iwa-chan!" 

At the twenty-fourth point, Hajime charges up the net, heaven-ready— _but like hell he'd ever go this early—_ and lets the ball graze the palm of his hand. He thinks of it like Oikawa's touch, his warmth spreading across the surface of his skin, a connection made across time together and time apart and that infinitely strange in-between. In his haze, a whole new world altogether, he remembers everything—their first match at Kitagawa Daiichi, their last at Seijou, every damn game between and beyond, and makes a promise for the courts and off it. It is for the entire world to know.

 _I will always be an ace. I will always be yours._  

And when Hajime gets to spike that ball down, it comes down like thunder. The other team dives for cover, for a force they could never, ever hope to receive, and stay down in defeat. The gymnasium, in all its bated breath, looms quiet before erupting.

" _Hoseeeeeei! Hosei! Hosei! Hosei! Ho-sei!"_

Hajime stays at the net, fingers hooked on the rope to help him stay up. When a flurry of lavender confetti, light like a season's first snow, begins to flutter along like a celebratory dance, he finds reprieve in the way it gets to fall and fall and _fall._  

 _But just a little longer_ , Hajime thinks, when he tries to find Oikawa at the other end of the court. When he meets him once more, obscured by paper rivets and the roar of a crowd, he has his head tipped up to the ceiling, entranced by a victory's high. He has the nerve to make winning look like a gentle endeavor.

"Hajime," he calls, all sorts of small. When he faces him, his stares are wincing and bittersweet. 

Hajime welcomes him with a begrudging smile. He lets go of the net to begin his descent into rest.

"You're amazing, Hajime."

  


**_x_ **

  


**.14**

**tooru, did you know?**

**of the bird that could not cry?**

**he mourned by his songs.**

  
  
  
  
  


"Will you promise me something?"

Oikawa asks this a night later by the glow of lamplight, fingers pinching an unread page of _Sora Tabi Nikki._  

"Depends on what it is,” Hajime answers, knowing that he’ll go one, anyway.

"Promise me you'll be back in time for first snow," Oikawa tells Hajime, when they're alone in their apartment and they both know he's on the brink. "And the real kind, too. Not like the confetti from yesterday!"

"Hey, Hosei knows how to celebrate," Hajime changes the subject.

Oikawa pouts. "All it does is get stuck in my hair."

Hajime just coughs up a laugh and tries to lift his head up the pillow. "What a nightmare that must be for you," he finds the gall to tease, letting his fingers sift through Oikawa's hair as if he still hasn't gotten all the confetti out from all his tufts. At the gesture, Oikawa's face goes sour before settling into something merely uncomfortable, and Hajime notices how he can't stop picking at the bandages wrapped around his fingernails.

"Come on now," Hajime calls without reprimanding, pinching the shell of Oikawa's ear. "What's wrong?"

Offended, Oikawa merely looks away, holding back bigger scoffs. "You have the nerve to ask that,” he mutters, like Hajime's committed some menial sin, but his actions say otherwise; he lets his hand slink over Hajime's, only to lower it from his head to the confines of his cheek. At once, even sick, Hajime feels the stickiness against Oikawa's skin, like he might've been _crying_ about this, of all things, but he knows—of course he does, by now—that some things are better left for guessing. So when Oikawa says nothing about this, leaving nothing but shy looks and the mashing of shut lips, Hajime thinks he might have his answers anyway. Hajime understands the meaning of the word _intention,_ with hands guided to his sticky cheek _._ Oikawa doesn't have to make things any clearer.

"I'll come back soon," Hajime insists, small huffs all he can muster. 

"You better." 

"And don't go to Miyagi to look for me, all right? I'll be back, still in my mourning suit."

"Like I would, anyway."

"Good, because you've got classes. And scouts on your ass."

"You, too," Oikawa insists, right when his face looks like it's on the verge of breaking. Hajime watches his nostrils flare, how his face gets all ruddy under that pale veneer, and knows he's trying not to break down about this. There is a beat of silence between them, seconds stretched into a pre-mortem eternity, and the two of them break it the best way they know how—when Hajime is the one to beat Oikawa to the flick of his forehead, they both end up laughing, the sound of it bare, but there nonetheless. It is sincere. Hajime thinks he wouldn’t mind dying to music like that. 

“Hey, Oikawa?” Hajime asks, letting himself sink deeper into his pillow, too tired to really move, much less speak. But still, he calls after him, and Oikawa’s there to listen.

“Wanna keep reading for me?” Hajime asks. “I might like that.”

“Oh, yeah? But what if I don’t?” Oikawa refutes him. 

“What do you want to do, then?” 

“I want to kiss you.” 

“No.”

“But _Iwa-chan_.” 

“There’s no way in hell I’d let you do that,” Hajime insists, practically coughing up a lung to prove his point. He groans, closing his eyes as if that is the ultimate reprieve, and opens them back up to see Oikawa thumbing a flu mask in his hands. Hajime sighs before shaking his head once more, but Oikawa does not relent.

“I haven’t caught it from you once, Iwa-chan. Not once,” Oikawa tells him. “Doesn't that count for anything? A reward?" He looms closer. "A consolation prize?" 

“Oikawa.”

“ _Iwa-chan._ ”

“No,” Hajime tells him again, and he watches how the word makes Oikawa flinch by the point of his shoulders. He deflates, and rather visibly at that, but pretends he doesn’t care. He hides the flu mask away and jumps off the bed, feet shuffling along on the floor in pacing. He turns his back to Hajime, shrugging his cardigan on closer. 

“Fine. _Fine!_ I know. I know it’s a bad idea, _so_. Just. _Forget it_ ,” he fidgets, partially admitting defeat. “I’ll just go make you some tea, even though you say I put too much honey in it for your liking, but I do it for a reason you know, because it’ll stop your throat from getting so scratchy and maybe you won’t cough _to death_ —” 

“Tooru.”

Oikawa turns back around.

“ _Hajime._ ”

“Come here,” Hajime relents, beckoning for the flu mask. Oikawa approaches all tentative at first before lowering his guards, and he sits back down at the edge of the bed. The floodgates haven’t opened fully at this point, but it doesn’t take long to figure out where the fissures have formed: at this, Hajime is tempted to tell every tear in Tooru’s eye, the tremor of a fidgeting hand, to settle. _Don’t break because of me._ _Because_ _I’ll be back before you know it._

But Hajime does no such thing. He knows it never gets any easier.

“Kiss me then,” he tells Oikawa instead, “if that’s what you really want." 

Oikawa nods in tiny motions, like they’re both sixteen and shy and standing under the birdhouse again. He takes the flu mask, puts it over Hajime’s face with a gentle graze, careful to sling the elastic behind his ear, and leans over him in the most intimate bedside manner he can muster. 

When they loom into the kiss, it is merely a silhouette of the others they’ve shared before, and it is almost as if Oikawa can't bear to dig in too hard. _Give me your all_ , _like you always do,_ he wants to plead, because the void is often a lonely place, but he doesn’t fret when it is surely not enough. Because even if it isn’t, Hajime seeks to remember all of it anyway—the particular line of Oikawa's lips, the way Oikawa sighs, the way Oikawa _laughs_ and _cries_ at the same time, because _god is he all over the place_ —and makes a shelter out of the memories.

This continues until it doesn’t, and Hajime drifts off to something like sleep.

 

**_x_ **

  


_Dear obaachan and ojiichan,_

_I had a terrible day._

_And by now I should know that there will always be terrible days._

_Like when I die, or get bad grades, or make bad tosses, or lose games--those are the sorts of terrible days I should come to expect._

_But losing Iwa-chan?_  

_That's a different story._

_-Tooru_

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First off, please feel free to chat with me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/iwakages) or [tumblr](http://companions.tumblr.com)!
> 
> As I stated in the beginning, I wanted this chapter to be sort of on the light side, given the heaviness of the last one (and all the stuff with the witching hour). I really wanted to focus on the repeated motions of held hands (and touch in general) and intimacy without words. 
> 
> Also, just for housekeeping, I've moved the rating up to M because of the sex scene (though it wasn't super explicit) and I've added a chapter ;_; (hope no one minds!)
> 
> Anyway, until later!!


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